25 March 2008

Earlier this morning, 3:30 AM to be exact, my wife woke me up and told me she's feeling some labour pains already. 5 minutes later we left Adam at his nursery and at around 3:45 AM we're already at the Putrajaya Hospital's maternity department.
When I got to the hospital, the guard was sleeping blissfully at her desk. Of course you don't expect her to be awake and does her job do you? Okay la to her credit she did lift an eyelid when we got there. It's okay I'm not mad at her or anything. I bet she thought people come there for delivery all the time, big deal.
Thankfully the nurse in charge was awake (yay!). She was not at her desk but she quickly came when I rang the bell. The nurse was really helpful and efficient, plus she hails from Tanah Merah too, same as my wife. While the nurses checked on my wife, I went downstairs to register and pay for the deposit. The staff downstairs took her own sweet time to key in our details. Suddenly, to my horror I saw that she was using Windows 98! I was worried that it would hang or crash at such critical times but thank God it didn't. It's high time the government embraces open source system.

10 minutes later after filling up another form upstairs, I was finally beside Linda's bed in the delivery room. It was already 5cm by that time but we need to wait until it opened up to 8 centimeters before she can do any pushing. I stood there unmoving for nearly three hours and I could only hold her hand and console her as she occasionally writhe in pain. After what it seemed like an eternity, around 6:30 AM Linda was finally ready for labour.
3 nurses and a female doctor were present to help her with the delivery. They guided and coaxed her to push the baby out but some how our baby just won't come out. Around 6:40 they decided to call in another doctor, a guy name Marsha. As you might have guessed, Dr. Marsha was a little bit on the soft side but he did a wonderful job at motivating my wife to get the baby out. At exactly 6:40 AM, our second child, a healthy and bouncy baby girl weighing 3.24 kg was born. For me, it doesn't matter if the doctor was a guy or a woman, Malay or otherwise, I just couldn't bear to see wifey in pain any more, All that really mattered was my wife and child is safe. And yay it's a girl after all!
Unlike during Adam's birth, Linda doesn't even need to be stitched at all this time. I had to leave the delivery room while they cleaned up baby and her mom and I took that opportunity to tell all my friends and family this happy-happy news.
For all yer Muslim fathers out there, if you ever get a baby girl, you need to Iqamat at her left ear while facing the qiblat. I almost said the Azan to her right ear before I remember the correct thing to do. Hey you can't exactly blame me, I've never had a baby girl before!
About an hour later a few medical students came in to do an interview with me missus. I was in a really good mood then. So I just let those bugger bugs my wife for a while.
About two hours after delivery, they moved my wife and kid to the obstetric ward upstairs. My mom came around 10 o'clock and at 11 they nurses told us to leave and came back an hour later which we did. Then I went back home, pick up Adam and try to get some sleep cause I was so tired after a long-long day at the hospital. Adam who said he missed me decided to bug me many times so there goes my much needed rest.
6 o' clock we were back at the hospital for our final visit. It was Adam's first visit too and he was all excited and eager to see his little sister. When he finally gets to meet her Adam turned into this caring and loving brother. He stroked her gently and spoke to her even wanted to hold her in his little arms. I hope he won't just do that for today only. Linda can't leave the hospital just yet so she's staying there for the night. So it's just Adam and his dad alone at home tonight.