Sick sick and sick

Dear Reader,

This fall, flu has taken down some of our family members... It started with me, a while ago, then, our helper, Myrtille and went back at me again. Myrtille is the one who suffered the most. Her fever got very high, she had some hallucinations and her appetite is near ground level, she does not eat, does not drink...
But since she started an antibiotic treatment, she has felt a bit better, at least, she does not have fever during the day anymore, only during her sleeping time.

As she stays at home, she easily get bored and is constantly requesting people to play with her. We are not too sure how to develop her interest in playing alone for some time. Maybe it's in her. So, we are rapidly pushed into our limits... Mom this, Mon that, Dad this, Dad that... Yukyin is tired as baby is relentlessly asking for milk...

Anyhow, we need prayers... for different things, first, we are all sick, so it would be good that we reach 2013 in good shape, second, we would like to found a way to have Myrtille grow more by herself, not reaching for our presence/help at all times. Sometimes, she is is really used to rely on us.

In the meantime, some pictures:

Myrtille and her friend during last Saturday outing (before she got really sick)

and her little brother, playing... behind his towel.

Thanks for reading.

10 days into a 4 Pax family

Dear Reader,

It's been 10 days since God gave us the joy of having a new baby home and what a gift! :)

Lil'bro does not have a name yet, but he is growing. The first half of his life was spent between hospital and home. He was born on the 22nd of November and they spent 2 nights at the hospital, as Yukyin wanted as best as possible to breastfeed, Lil'bro was not allowed any formula supplement, but we might have done it wrong at first. Lil'bro was a bit hungry and after two days, he was suffering from jaundice. He had quite a yellow tint but they still allowed him to be discharged. On the other hand, Yukyin needed an extra day to recover as she did not eat on the delivery day and could not eat afterward at all, she lost too much blood and did not have the energy to put her back in shape, she was feeling dizzy and uneasy with food. On the next day, appetite came back and she started to eat and regain energy. So, by Saturday afternoon, they were both home. But, Lil'Bro appetite dropped and we started to be a bit worried. Yukyin did not have milk in yet, so we were a bit concerned.

On Monday, we brought him to the Medical Health Centre, they told us that he needs to go back to the hospital for further checking. Through those events, I became angry about how wasteful the government can be in some cases, devices to check jaundice there have a 30% variation in readings and at the end, we were asked to go back to the hospital... somehow, I am just thinking if we should not have all those checking done in one same place instead of running around. Anyway, we got to the hospital in the afternoon and Lil'Bro needed to stay in for the night. I was kind of heartbroken... I know that jaundice is common but it's just sad seeing that little guy half naked in a plastic box lit by a powerful lamp. Just a feeling of loneliness. Besides that, they needed to feed him formula, bottle after bottle... they had a fixed amount of milk he needed to eat so that he could flush toxines and other bad things responsible for his jaundice... After one day, he was sharp awake when we visited him... 8) At home he has always been a bit sleepy, there he wanted to eat... So, somehow, we were disagreeing with the hospital's way of doing things, but in the same time, they got him his appetite back.

Another night passed and lamps when out, he was in observation, his jaundice rates were back to lower readings and he could go home on holiday for a night :). So, since Wednesday night, he is back home and we got all tired again from lack of sleeping. Yukyin's milk quantity is a lot higher than before, so I think he can be breastfed from now on. He had a few hesitations at first asking for milk bottle, but Yukyin kept strong and got the message in his mind... "you can only be breastfed".

Now, it's been few days, we are still very tired, Yukyin makes most of the effort, getting up and feeding him through days and nights. There is just some things we will never being able to replace. I tried to keep my head cool down, I had some bad time at start, gave some angry stares at Yukyin, but I'll pray that I'll get my temper in check. Sorry for being such a bad husband. I admire the love you give us so much.

I'll probably tell more about Myrtille another time as she also did change to cope with the presence of her little brother.

Here are some pictures of him:
Thinking about Mum

Another one:
Fully Awake, staring at Dad

Thanks for reading.

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!