Ngoc Chau #2749
English 269
Mr. D. Mullen
10/12/07





My First Newborn Baby

September 17, 2000, is the most memorable day in my life. I remember when the clock reached midnight, September 17, 2000 began. I was laying in bed at home trying to relax by watching a funny Chinese movie. Later, I slowly fell asleep during the movie, but because I felt a strong kick in my stomach, it woke me up. The strong kick from the strong feet felt like it was stuck in my lower ribs for a second. This uncomfortable pain woke me up from my beauty sleep, so I got up and walked to the kitchen and got myself some water to drink, and then I walked my heavy body back to bed. Trying to put myself back to sleep again was not easy. For a while my body got really tired. I felt like I was half asleep and half awake, as if my body was sleeping but my mind was still awake. I was getting frustrated, so I got up and sat up straight for a little bit. I looked over at the clock and it was already 3:05 in the morning. I tried to comfort myself by putting a lot of pillows around me and listening to some slow love songs. I was glad that I was finally falling back to sleep again. But not for long, I felt a contraction coming slowing. Every 20 to 27 minutes, I would feel another contraction. It was about 4:20 a.m. If I was to grade the pain level, it went from one to two. I didn’t know whether to go to the hospital or call my doctor because I did not see any bleeding. I decided not to call the doctor. At the time I was really clueless because that was my first child. I remember my doctor told me that if I experience any bleeding, I need to come back to the hospital. He did not mention anything about experiencing a little pain or my water bag breaking. I ended up staying home because I thought the pain was caused by baby movements, I was not concerned too much about the pain, besides the due date for my new born baby was close to 4 weeks later.
5:00 a.m. in the morning, I felt a huge amount of water coming out of my body, which was unusual for my body. I did not know what it was because first of all it was not my due date yet, and I did not experience any bleeding, so I thought that the baby movement was so strong that it pushed on my bladder. At the time I was still lying in bed, but feeling more and more uncomfortable as the time went by. At around 6:35 a.m, I noticed that the pain was getting worse, and the times between my contractions were getting closer, and because I did not get much rest the night before, I was tired. I felt like I had no energy, but because the pain came constantly, it kept me up so I felt more tired. About half an hour later, I picked up my cell phone and called my doctor. Unfortunately, my doctor was on vacation and he wouldn’t be back for a week, so then I spoke to the nurse and explained what happened throughout the night, and immediately she wanted me to come to the hospital to get a check up. When I reached the hospital (Lgh West Bryan Hospital) in Lincoln, Nebraska, the nurse used a wheelchair to push me in and took the elevator to the 7th floor and put me in a room. The nurse immediately measured how much I dilated, and had me fill out lots of paper work at the same time. Because I had not been dilated, the nurse wanted me to walk around in the hospital, so I will dilate faster and easier for me.
I slowly walked to the baby care room, through their clear windows I watched the newborn babies sleep; they look so tiny and so cute. I was praying as I walked along the hall way. I prayed that everything would be ok, and my baby will be good in health because the baby was about one month premature. Then I walked to the gift shop and looked at some baby clothes, read some baby stories and listened to some baby lullabies. Later I walked to the waiting lobby and rested for about 5 to 10 minutes, because the waiting lobby was on the main floor, and it was pretty close to the cafeteria.
My nose picked up some smell that made me crave for it. So, even though I still had contractions, I still wanted to eat. Then I got up and walked to the cafeteria to check out the food. When I got there, I went straight for whatever I craved for and dug in. The food tasted so good, and of course I would not let the chance pass by, so I ended up stuffing myself with a creamy lemon pie for dessert. At that point, it felt like a dream come true because after feeding that craving, it was a sweet full feeling.
After finishing up my meal, I got more tired and felt sleepy, so I walked to the 7th floor on stairway and asked the nurse if I could please stay in the room and rest for a bit because I was tired. The nurse measured how much more I dilated, but I wasn’t ready. The good thing is I did not had to walk around anymore, so I layed in the room and the nurses came in and out checking on me, injecting IV into my body and she also added some kind of medication that helped me have the baby faster. About half an hour later my pain kicked in so much.
One of the nurses asked me if I wanted her to add another medication in my IV to help me relax, that way I would be able to get a little rest, but the medication put me to sleep instead. I remember at one point, my grandmother was in the room with me, she saw that I was falling asleep while I was in labor, so she started to get worried. She was afraid that I might just sleep through it, so she came closer to me and grabbed my arm and shook me, screamed at me “wake up, don’t sleep.” At the same time my contraction kicked in and it make me grumpy. I yelled at her and told everyone to get out of the room. I did not want anyone to be in the room with me, I just wanted some quiet time, so I could relax my mind and concentrate on the pain and get some rest too. My family was very excited because this was the first grandchild in the family so they talked and laughed so loud that they disrupted my rest, so I asked the nurse to send them out of my room. Finally I was able to get some rest, but once in awhile the nurse would come in and check on me, and check on the measuring device. They wrapped it around my stomach for my contractions to monitor the baby’s heart rate.
My water bag broke early in the morning, but I still hadn’t dilated enough for the baby to come out. So, that was very dangerous for me and the baby inside. Because after the water breaks and if the baby hasn’t come out; then the baby inside could be dry and it is very harmful to the baby and will also cause me to have a high fever. If I still could not dilate enough, the doctors would perform a C section on me so they could get the baby out in time and save my life, too. But fortunately, around 4:25 p.m., I finally dilated to 8 centimeters and of course the pain was out of control, so the nurse started to get things ready and to put me in the position. Since my doctor was on vacation, they found me another doctor. But because doctors require that I have to be dilating to 10 centimeters in order to push the baby out, and I could not take the pain anymore, I just felt like I needed to push. So, I tried not to push yet because the doctor wasn’t there yet? I asked the nurse if the doctor had arrived, she said “the doctor is on his way to my room”. As soon as the doctor stepped in the door I felt so relieved because I was afraid that they could not find a doctor to deliver my baby for me. Once, the doctor is in the room, the nurse helped the doctor to put on a plastic outfit that keeps the doctor from bloods and dirty stuff. Then right there, I took a deep breath and gave a hard push, but still the doctor said “not yet,” but I could not help it. I guess the baby’s head was a little down so that the doctor could see, but it was not out yet, so the doctor and nurse told me to take a deep breath and push really hard. So, the baby’s head was out a little bit and I remember I had to do another hard push, the last one I just pushed and the rest my doctor helped me pull the baby out. I heard the doctor say “congratulations, it’s a boy” and I heard my baby’s first cry for the first time, by then I was completely burned out and had no energy left in me, but I felt a huge relief. I was very happy. I looked up and the nurse handed the baby over for me to hold. I gave him a kiss and the nurse told me she had to take my baby to the care room to keep his temperature up and put him in this oxygen machine for premature babies.
Meanwhile, the doctor had to finish the rest of his job. While he was working on me, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was in a different room resting. One of the nurses came in and talked to me and had me fill out some more paper work, and slowly more different people came in to talk to me, they had me sign a lots of papers and asked me what do I want to name the baby, so I named my baby boy Anthony. About 15 minutes later, the nurse asked me do I want to breast feed Anthony or let him drink the milk that they supplied in the bottles. I said I wanted to breast feed Anthony, but when the nurse pushed Anthony over to my room to practice on the breast feeding. Somehow, Anthony did not like it. The nurse and I tried different ways to trick Anthony but it did not work, so from then, Anthony drank the milk that hospital supplied. Anthony weighed exactly 5 pounds, and he was 19 and 1/8 inches long, and this is the most memorable day of my life.