yes, the long wait was over. as usual, kris aquino stole once more my baby's shining moments for she gave birth to baby james earlier. hehe=p. when i learned about this, i knew at once that it would be possible for me to give birth anytime soon. donar kept reminding me that starting april 20th our baby is already considered full-term. i was still in denial then since i really wanted to give birth on may. wala lang. before i share how the labor and delivery went on, i just wanted to share the events for the past two weeks that i thought really affected my early (though not pre-term) delivery to baby djuan.
april 11 (maternity portrait pictorial)
this is becoming a fad these days to preggies. when i first learned about maternity portrait pictorial i casually mentioned it to donar and he immediately liked the idea and asked me at once to schedule one for me. what an excited dad and supportive husband:)! we could have gone to a studio like the the picture company or blow up babies to have my pictorial but we opted to have it done outdoors by a professional photographer. i think donar and i are now comfortable with outdoors shoot because of our prenup pictorials (had done it twice during wedding preps:D). then i learned about ging lorenzo through n@w (newlywedsatwork yahoo group). i contacted her and of course, i haggled for her professional fee. hehe. so then we agreed to have my pictorial done in the afternoon of april 11 at up diliman. here are some of my fave pics from the pictorial. these are unedited ones. you can check out ging's blog about our pictorial for more pictures.
april 13 (my parents's wedding anniversary)
it was my parents's 41st wedding anniversary. my ate mayet went home all the way from holland to surprise our parents. sweet di ba?!=) the whole family went to eat dinner at dad's megamall for the celebration.
april 14 (divi day with my family)
the day after my sister arrived from holland, we hit divisoria for some kikay stuff shopping for her. we were walking the whole afternoon and funnily the only thing i was able to buy was a basketball stress ball which i intended to use every morning when my hands swell and also when labor comes (which i actually did use!).
april 15 (sm day with my family)
we were not satisfied with the divi trip so the following day we hit sm san lazaro (which apparently was having its mall-wide sale then. mega-shopping again. actually i wasn't buying anything because donar and i were super prepared already for baby's arrival. of course, we had so much walking again especially when we went for grocery shopping. it was almost closing time when we left for home. i told my siblings that if we did this for another weekend i won't make it to the month of may anymore (true enough!)
april 20 (last ob-check up)
early in the morning, me, donar and my siblings sent ate mayet to the airport. she planned to go home this day but unfortunately she wasn't able to get to the plane for the flight is fully booked and she only had an open ticket with her (her husband's an airline employee). donar and i learned she was not flying that day when we were already in our wedding photog's studio in diliman. we went back to naia to pick her up. i told donar i would drive coz i missed driving already and i thought it would be much faster for us to reach the airport. much to my dismay, i was apprehended by the airport security coz they saw a police alarm device installed in my car (my elder sister used to own the car and her husband is a police). i was endorsed to the pnp airport station. imagine me, a 9-month preggy being questioned by a police! good thing kuya badong, my bro-in-law (the policeman), talked to them over the celfone to fix things up so i got away. whew! we then decided to go to moa because we hadn't have lunch yet and it was burning like hell outside. as usual, we were in the mall again and of course we had so much walking again. :D then finally our last stop for the day. we went to cgh for my now weekly checkup with dr. patricia tan. baby djuan was doing good. i was supposed to ask my obgyn if donar could accompany me to the delivery room on the big day but thought it was still too early to ask. *sigh*. little did i know that 3 days later i would give birth already.
april 23 (baby djuan's arrival, 12:25pm, 5lbs 11oz (2580g), 47cm.)
in action - starting around 7pm of the previous evening, i felt baby djuan stretching (on my lower left and upper right). i thought it was just his usual stretching routine but it went on for hours until donar and i were about to sleep at 3am. every time djuan stretched out i screamed aray aray. donar even joked that he had to bring me to the hospital already. told him it wasn't time yet for i haven't really felt the labor signs as i've read it on my pregnancy books and babycenter.com. i got so worried with djuan's prolonged stretching so i asked donar to check baby's heartbeat in his stethoscope before we went to sleep. i was assured then by donar that baby was ok. come 6am in the morning, i woke up with the urge to pee. relieving was so painful that i thought i was having another uti again (like when i first learned i was preggy). i went back to sleep (though it felt like i haven't slept at all through the night) ignoring the pain. i woke up again by 8am coz i was still to go to work this week (then start my maternity leave the ff. week). the pain was still there but this time i did not only feel the pain while peeing. i also felt it while pooping. then there was the bloody show. at first i thought it was just coming from my anus but i double checked and indeed labor was just around the corner! as soon as i learned this, i told donar that the time has come and plans changed for the day. he was no longer driving me to the office but to the hospital instead! we decided to still have our usual morning routine: breakfast (though i only had one pandesal and 1/4 glass of milk coz donar told me i shouldn't eat too much during labor), shower then prepare our things (this time our things for the hospital). we left home before 10am but didn't go straight to the hospital. we dropped by franco clinic first coz donar left his scrub suit there. he wanted to be with me in the delivery room so he needed this suit. in between contractions (i was consistently having it every 5minutes. first few ones lasted for about 15 seconds only then it became longer and more intensed), i called up my ate jean (to tell her i was already in labor and for god's sake my memory stick was still with her!) and my office (to tell them i was already in labor and that of course i could no longer attend the meeting). on our way to cgh, every time i had the contractions, i would call donar (daddy! daddy! aaah!) then he would slow down the car and put it on hazard. he asked me several times if we had to stop and i would just always scream at him to continue driving coz i wanted to be in the hospital at once to ease the pain. come 11:15am, we arrived at the er (emergency room) of chinese general hospital. we were first refused by the guards at the parking entrance (same entrance with that of er) because the parking was full. stupid guards learned i was in labor and we were actually heading for the er. anyway, donar had to leave me alone with the er obgyn on-duty coz he had to park our car in the other parking lot. my cervix was already 5-6cm dilated when i was checked by the doctor. i was already halfway in labor. i was immediately brought to the dr (delivery room) even if i told them i wanted to wait for donar to come back for me. they just scared me that i would give birth anytime soon so i have to be brought to the dr asap. they took away my bag and my winnie the pooh pillow. i was then assisted by dr. mac tan, obgyn resident and donar's fellow intern in cgh during their internship days, in the delivery room. she asked me if we opted for epidural (for painless labor). donar forgot to tell me his choice anesthesiologist so the ppl in the dr had to contact him first before they called the anes that would administer the epid. i remember that one ob resident was talking to donar over the celfone and when she placed the phone over my ears, i was screaming like crazy because i couldn't bear the pain of the contractions anymore. i cried when i felt my bag of water broke down. i was so scared then coz i remembered donar's story abt preggy women breaking their bag of water at the start of labor and losing their babies (later i just realized that i was too paranoid to co-relate the breaking of the bag of water with still birth). i was then immediately brought to table (term they use when they put the preggy on a table where she would finally give birth). it was funny coz i remembered i was the last one to enter the room with about 4-5 preggies in labor ahead of me but then i was the first one to get out of the room:D. this time the contractions were so painful that it felt like i would like to pee and poop (like constipated) at the same time. i was constantly asking for the epidural coz the pain was already unbearable and uncomfortable and i was afraid i would push prematurely because the urge was already there. then i heard they could no longer administer the epid to me coz i was already 8cm dilated and in no time i will be fully dilated. and indeed when i was fully dilated, the anes came and just administered :(dle block (numb from the rear end down) instead of epidural. it felt like i won big time in an awards night coz i was thanking everybody when the anesthesia was already administered to me. then came my obgyn, dr. patricia tan. as soon as she arrived, almost everybody was on me. i was given instuctions to push so hard like i was having a hard time to poop. they asked me to let go of my stress ball (the basketball stress ball i bought in divi), which i was holding so hard every contraction, and just hold these bars beside my table instead. on two big pushes and with an assistance of a nurse or a doctor pushing my tummy, at 12:25pm of this day, baby djuan marius was born:)! the pictorial started and i even heard dr. pat tan telling the "photographer" to take her picture first because she's the bida (the star in the movie) there:D. she then remembered donar and told her assistants that they should have let him in the dr because he's a doctor anyway and he used to be an intern in the hospital. donar came in while they were cleaning baby djuan. when djuan was already clean they held him to me. i almost cried=) . i was so happy to see him (he actually looked like my tatay!) and i was so relieved it was finally over and my fears that i would have a still birth were gone. it was amazing that when we had our first pictures with djuan, he was no longer crying. it was like he knew he was on a pictorial:)! it was really a very unusual labor and delivery for me. first, the labor was so quick that if we had to face one heavy traffic in blumentritt, i could have given birth inside our car. it was too far from the articles i've read all this time. secondly, after giving birth to baby djuan, the delivery room became a place for the reunion of donar with his fellow interns in cgh. there were dr. mac tan (ob res), dr. minette yap (4th yr ob res), dr. josey lou cabral (4th yr ob res) and dr. alodia ortiz (newly grad pedia). dr. josey lou was actually on leave but she came by to assist us (thank you:)!). she had my placenta delivered and she had done my stitches. dr. dia was also there to stand as baby djuan's pedia. thank you too:)!
recovering from delivery - immediately after my stitches were done, i was brough to rr (recovery room). before i got there, i was told that my baby weighed 5lbs 11 oz. he was so small but i didn't worry for i know he would be a healthy baby boy. i was so awake the whole time (from labor to giving birth and even while i was resting in the recovery room). ironically, the rr was really not suited for recovering patients for it was a room full of noisy nurses. they were chatting and eating there. some were even screaming when entering the room like nobody was actually resting there. the only people who gets to rest there are the nurses who sleep on their duty. tsk tsk. i arrived in rr at about 1pm and by then i still couldn't feel a thing below my waist even when they had to inject a pain killer through my butt. by 2:30pm, i was already able to move my feet. it was weird because i was trying to move my feet and it moved but i couldn't feel that it was actually moving. by 4pm, i could move my legs already. it was time to move me to my room. donar got us a suite from the newest building of the hospital. this building has the most expensive rooms of cgh. the room was cozy and it was just enough for my whole family who visited me that night. i thought though that it was too much for our budget coz i know all of the hospital charges depend on the room accommodation that we get, especially the professional fee of the doctors. good thing when i was discharged the following day, we confirmed that we were paying not even a single cent for the professional fees of our doctors (2 obgyn, 1 pedia, 1 anes). it was noted as "care of" in our bill. i so love them! we only paid for the delivery room, my suite, baby's nursery stay and some lab and pharma charges. donar and i just planned to give special gifts to these kind-hearted doctors. now, i am really enjoying being a wife of a doctor:).
receiving my visitors - the people who were there for me during labor and delivery was of course my husband, donar, then my ate jean and daisy may. when i was transferred to my room, my nanay and my younger brother, bejay, arrived. later in the evening, donar's mom arrived with their househelp, helen. then came my ate jean's family (kuya badong and my two nephews, jan and justin and their yaya, buding). kuya eric, my bro-in-law, also visited. after we visited the nursery for baby viewing, my tatay came and shortly my kuya boy and his wife, ate maro, also came. my last visitors for the day were my officemates from ssip who were joking that i just coughed and gave birth to djuan. hehe:D. lisa, jay (lisa's bf), roselyn, carlos and eduard came by and brought me my requested flowers from dangwa. too bad i forgot to take a pic of the flowers. but anyway i could still remember it for it was the same flower arrangement we had when we visited carlos's wife after giving birth to their second baby, ethan. the following day, my first visitor was my boss, vpl. donar and i were really touched that despite his hectic schedule he found time to visit me:). djuan's pedia, dr. dia, also dropped by to update us with baby's progress and also give us his baby book. my last visitors before i left for home were donar's fellow interns: doctors eric (med), shiela (pulmo) and cecil (pulmo). unfortunately, they didn't get to see donar for he already left for work earlier.
i already have lots of cute pics of baby djuan but i will just share muna our pictures on his birth date. will post another blog soon. :) check out the pictures!
