My wife gave birth to an incredibly beautiful baby girl on 31 May, 2013. She will be one week old today.
I was reading back on the post I wrote about my wife's first delivery and it made me realise what a huge difference it was this time around.
With Nat, my wife's labour started at 5am and she gave birth at 11pm - the entire labour lasted 18 hours! When we checked into the hospital, she was already almost 8cm dilated and the nurse said that she may have given birth in the car if had waited a bit more. She delivered Nat less than two hours after we arrived.
I have to say that this time round, we were a little calmer. Not by a lot, but definitely more assured as we had gone through it before.
My wife woke me up at 1am to let me know that labour had started. Immediately, I rushed to...my laptop to clear work - it was the month end and there were some reports which could only be done after every transaction for the month had been picked up by the back end system. I wanted to ensure that it was completed because once I got to the hospital I wouldn't be able to follow up.
I felt a tap on my shoulder at 3am to let me know that the contractions were progressing faster than before and so I rushed out what I could and we made our way to the hospital at about 3:30am. The nurse checked Sarah and she was around 3cm dilated. At 5:30am the doc arrived and immediately broke the water bag with that chopstick-like appliance.
From that point on the contractions and pain accelerated very quickly and by around 7:30am, she could start pushing already. Surprisingly, in 10 minutes, the baby was out (with Nat, it took 45 minutes of pushing and my wife was almost ready to give up because she had no more strength).
I'm happy to say that I was brave enough to cut the umbilical cord this time round. It wasn't as gross as I thought it would be. And I even watched the doc pull out the placenta. OK, now that was gross and I'll be having nightmares for awhile.
So that's our second experience in a nutshell. Definitely a lot less eventful than the first time round. There were two incidents which were absolutely hilarious...but I don't think I'm at liberty to share. You'll have to ask my wife when you meet her face to face and if you're close enough, she may just tell you the story.
As it was a natural delivery, Sarah and Sam only needed to stay for one night, and are now safe and comfortable at home. Sam's been an absolute gem and drinks milk every one and a half to two hours. This might sound difficult but it was much, much tougher with Nat so we're very happy with the current situation. I'll write more about it in future posts.
Here's another picture that I took of Sam on her second day in the world. Her eyes are already so alert and when she looks directly at me intently, it's like she can look into my heart and see how much I love her. She does look a little 'boyish' but to me, she is truly the most adorable, perfect baby in my life (Nat's a toddler now so she doesn't count).
I'll probably write more later on about how Nat's coping because that in itself is a big battle...
So many stories and so little time...
But it's OK - as I shared in my previous post, I believe it's infinitely more important to live life than to capture it.
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