My elder godsis finally gave birth on Tuesday night but it was quite a traumatic experience for all of us. She had been messaging us, keeping us up-to-date on how her induction was progressing, and at about 2pm, she was 4cm dilated and the midwife predicted that the baby would be out in an hour or two. When we didn’t hear anything else after that from her, we assumed that she was in the birthing room and patiently waited for the message announcing the arrival of her second son.
By 10pm, we still hadn’t heard from her so my second godsis called my godma to see if she had any updates. She texted me after that to say that the baby was born at 923pm and that he had already been wheeled out of the delivery room and into the nursery. When I spoke to my godma after that, she proudly told me that the baby was very alert and looking around with his eyes wide open. We were all rather puzzled about why my elder godsis wasn’t wheeled out together with the baby and her husband didn’t tell my godma anything either. Their elder boy, Nat, was very excited and spoke to me over the phone as well, telling me that he was now a ‘kor kor’, and giggled bashfully when I congratulated him.
Shortly after that, we received a message from P, my godsis’ husband, saying that she had lost a lot of blood and was unable to clot. He also said she had DIVC and that the doctor had ordered some bags of blood and platelets for transfusion. How scary! We quickly prayed for her and asked him to keep us updated. Thank God that at about 1am, her condition stabilised, although she had to be under close monitoring in the Critical Care Unit.
When we visited her yesterday, I almost cried when I saw her. Not because she looked sickly, but because I was so relieved that she was fine. She looked a little pale but was able to speak to us properly and told us about her ordeal. Apparently, each time the IV drip for the drugs was turned on, the baby’s heartbeat would drop, and they had to stop the induction process. She went through two rounds of epidural and by the third bag, she was shivering uncontrollably. She didn’t have enough strength to really push the baby out and it didn’t help that he has a really big head. Her gynae is particularly skilled with the forceps but because the baby wasn’t even crowning, it took him ten tries to get the baby out. After he stitched her up, he realised that she wasn’t clotting and blood just kept dripping out. By then, my godsis said she was feeling very giddy, although she was alert enough to notice the doctor asking for blood to be sent from the blood bank. She didn’t know what was going on and things were a little hazy from then on. Apparently, she was taken to the CCU and given the blood and platelet transfusions there. She lost two-thirds of her own blood! Thank God that mother and baby are now doing well.
So here’s my new nephew, Zachary, who weighed 3.51kg at birth. Such a big boy!
The proud older brother, Nathaniel, with his baby brother
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