Friday, November 23, 2012

God listens... and gives.

Dear Reader,

God listened to our prayers. After Myrtille's delivery experience here, Yukyin was so marked that she did not want to have another baby, but after several years of thinking, she tried to put her fear aside, but no matter how you try, you can't definitively put it aside. So we prayed, we prayed with friends around us, we prayed with brothers and sisters in our cell group, we prayed with Pastors, we prayed and prayed with Myrtille... we kept praying. Yukyin wanted to experience a natural delivery, not a c-section again, but she had her moral sapped by several private obstetricians, telling her that it's no use, the best is to go with a c-section and coming with millions of different reasons about why she failed the first time. She wanted to try to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) but modern medicine prefers to stick to c-section surgery if the mother has went through a previous c-section as the risks are somewhat safer and much more under control. But Yukyin read a lot on the topic (she might tell you more one day) and still wanted a vaginal birth in order to have a quicker recovery for the mother (c-section does hurt your body, it's a surgery after all). So, knowing that she might have a slight chance to succeed (50/50 in the best case from the most optimistic obstetrician) and against  nearly all the obstetricians advice, we still decided to tell the hospital that we would opt for a natural delivery instead of a c-section on appointment.

Thus, from the end of August, Yukyin spent her days and night playing on her fitness ball, going to the swimming pool... doing exercises, walking, swimming, walking, squating... and most of all, praying and keep asking people to pray for her.

Seeing that baby was still not in the mood to come out, we kinda lost hope but we still prayed.

So after 9 months of prayers, on the due date, Yukyin's body started to have contractions around 11AM. She stayed home as she did not want to be under hospital environment stress and pressure. She started to keep track of her contractions, 1 mn every 3-4 mn. It was starting weak. At around 11:30, she asked me to come back home for lunch, so I took half day off. My boss is really good with us, so I could leave without issue. She stayed on her fitness ball, she thought that by going to the hospital, she won't have it anymore.

At 3PM, frequency started to increase, we were at 1 mn every 2 and a half minutes and she could not hold it anymore. We packed our things, I told her to keep the ball and try if she can use it there... we tried to call for a discounted taxi (thanks Grace for the number, Yukyin did not want me to spend 2 minutes not by her side googling for one), but this one told me that it's too short a trip to come pick us up... :( so we went for the legal way, call up a taxi at the Shatin Taxi station, went to the hospital. Registered her up. They did a quick check-up, she was 2cm dilated.

At 3:40, we noticed some nurses talking about fitness ball... And we simply asked if she could use hers as they did not provide any. They said yes! "you should fight for your privileges" (actually, the nurse was from another department and talking to her pregnant friend who was midwife". So Yukyin was happy as she could make herself comfortable again.

At 4:40, I started to hear her crying out her pain and suddenly, the nurses cried out "Ayaaa". Her water broke and they asked her to move back on her bed. She was fighting with the nurses... she could not move at all. They checked her up, the nurses said: "4-5 cm, let's write 4", they move her to the labor room.
Once in the labor room, another nurse checked her up and told her: "You can start to push"... Yukyin was "o_0" ??? what?
She got two incisions and they asked her to push as baby is ready for delivery, she could not believe it!! After 2-3 pushes... baby was there, 4:52PM! She spent less than 15 min at the labor room and baby was born! It's a guy, 3.4kg, we will present him later on.

To sum up, we are SO THANKFUL to the Lord first and to our cell group, pastors and all people who supported and prayed for us, who also prayed that she could manage a VBAC.. We still can't believe how blessed we are! God really gave us a perfect delivery, he listened to our prayers, Yukyin spilled it all, she prayed because she did not want to wait 48 hours as with Myrtille and end up with a c-section, she prayed because she was afraid of the hospital first stage room AKA the room where you endlessly wait and hear other women cry out loud in pain while waiting for your turn... She prayed because she was afraid she would not know how to breathe correctly, she prayed because she knew VBAC would involve some risk (the scar might burst in some rare case). She prayed because she wanted me to assist the birth, it ended up that I could not this time either because of malfunction in the public hospital systems (related to gas leak and all)... She prayed because PW hospital is not the best hospital of the world and that we got a lot of bad stories about it, especially trainees from Chinese University of Hong Kong.... She prayed, prayed, prayed... and she got what she wanted most, an ultra smooth delivery.

Thank you Lord!

Monday, November 19, 2012

Are we there yet?? and some mixed feelings about School

Dear Reader,

Yukyin is at week 39 and baby is still not in the mood to show its face... We really start to feel the weight of all those seconds, minutes, hours or days passing one after the other. Everything is ready, we just need to get baby out of Yukyin's tummy. We keep praying for Yukyin's delivery. That's for my first piece of non so happy news, here is the second one...

Last week, we got the first teacher/parents meeting at Myrtille's kindergarten and I won't hide the fact that we are not so happy about that. She is 3 but she is already so far behind... She is not an easy girl and she does not cross your sight when saying "good morning", she likes to play several different educational toys in a short time while the other may just play one or two at max, she likes dancing around in gym class when her teacher asked her to only stand on a predefined area, she has no patience and wants things right away, she does not know how to draw a face (a circle, with two eyes, a nose, two ears and a mouth)... So, yes she is 3 and she is considered "BEHIND"... If it continues, we will need to use other methods says the teacher...

I think I am just going to blow it out: "SO WHAT?".... Myrtille is 3, if she goes to kindergarten, it's obviously that I would like my kid to learn things at school and not having me teaching her at home. I know that I need to play my part as a parent, but is it K-1? She does not even know how to hold a pen correctly! how can you just ask her to draw a face? ... "look at the others, they can all do that"... so what? Just pushing things into a kid's mind is just wrong, there is no more discoveries, no more fun in the learning experience, that's just sad. The first few years are really the years made for the kids to be given boundless fun with the different tools they have under hands. Instead of that, they just try to format kids into a mold. That's SO wrong. Kids just become robots. I do appreciate the religious teaching they offer, but capping a kid at that age is just so sad.

In a flash of an instant, we gave a thought at leaving the public schooling in order to get something more western culturally speaking, but we just can't afford it.

Now that my anger has passed, we'll continue to work on what we thing is really a problem, Myrtille's impatient side and bad manners. Other than that, I just realize how much we are not in phase with school. I thought they were doing things at child's pace... but no, they are doing things at Hong Kong's pace.

I'll work my bottom off in order to get her through that early-learning phase that kindergarten completely missed. I just pray that God will change that city someday.

An angry Val

Monday, November 12, 2012

Still Waiting.. :)

Dear Reader, 

It's maybe the fourth time I use the word "Wait" in a post title, but yes, we have been waiting for a long time now. We are week 38 and baby does not seems to show any sign that it wants to get out of Mama's belly. So, meanwhile, we are still preparing ourselves. 

Myrtille is growing and she entered a new phase in her mind, we gave her her first stickers program reward, a Vaude flashy red backpack! She loves it. The stickers program is something really simple for kids, she does good thing and she receives some stickers, she gets 30 stickers and can exchange for a gift, it can be bought in advance so she is fully aware of it and even chose it. Right now, we have 3 boxes of toys sitting in our glass shelves... just waiting for her to collect some extra stickers.

She lost appetite too... That's a shocking piece of news, but she started to show difficulty eating vegetables... at the end, I think we are going to have to live through that. 

Yukyin is still doing various training in order to get baby in the right orientation, we really pray that she can do a natural birth this time. Her due date is in 10 days, so please keep her in your prayers if you think about us.

My workouts have gotten faster, I switched skates, I went back to my old BONT Vaypor 5x84mm wheels (you can google that if you have time). They are a LOT lighter than my previous Seba High boots, so I can skate faster and don't feel to have a 100 pounds gorillas attached to each one of my feet. Now I have some more precise figures to share, I average my outings at 15-16km/h, average speed is 17-18 on a flat surface. A sprint will get me into the 27-28km/h. I would like to reach a steady 20km/h on flat road and break the 30km/h on a sprint, but there is still plenty of work to do. I need to boost my heart first and I think I am going to jog train at a low speed in order to do that. Need to find the right fitness plan.

So, That's all for this week end. 
We spent some time taking some pictures, so here they are:


Another one:

And a last one, our little monster:

That's all folks, thanks for reading :) 
Please keep us in our prayers :)