November 30, 2011

A sojourn at the hospital

Neo-natal intensive care units are, by their nature, very depressing places. Not that other hospital units aren’t depressing, but there’s something more depressing about seeing tiny beings hooked onto tubes and monitors, surrounded by constant beep-beeping of medical equipment.

It’s all the more depressing if your child is in it.

It was just over three years ago that my daughter June spent nearly 10 days in such a room at a French hospital. Recounting the experience, which followed an even more traumatic birth experience, still brings tears to my eyes. And now I am in a déjà vu situation. I have been forced to such a unit, this time in Jakarta, for my son. He is sleeping soundly, between another small baby with a fever and a huge baby with a deformed head with a sickly pallor not unlike cement. Not a happy place to be. Not a place I’d imagined he’d be spending, after an ideal birth 20 days ago.

Unlike my daughter’s birth, which was a medicalized experience and a hugely disappointing one, it was such a relief to have had an ideal birth for my son. Bloody show at one day short of 38 weeks, labour starting naturally in the middle of the night (and allowing me to sleep for six hours or so) two days later, which got so strong by 8 in the morning the following day that I rang my ob/gyn. By the time he examined me at a clinic I was 3cm dilated. I headed towards the hospital, where, less than 2 hours after my arrival, my son was born. The pain was immense of course, and all the breathing techniques I’d learned went out the window, but with the help of the nurses, my ob/gyn, and my husband, I was able to give birth without the help of any pain killers. No induction, no epidural, no episiotomy—the perfect birth experience. Since I have an aversion to hospitals (and especially the food served there, yikes!), I managed to get permission from both my and my son’s doctors to have us discharged the next day. Breastfeeding started off well, my milk came in 3 days post-partum, my baby was gaining weight really well… then all of a sudden, fever stroke. Low-grade fever, but all parenting books say any fever over 38 degrees celsius in a newborn should be treated with caution. So I took him to a clinic, and this is how we’ve ended up back in the hospital where I gave birth.

My son has had blood and urine tests done and cultures taken to rule out signs of bacteria or any other harmful infections. The paediatrician doesn’t know what the problem is—only to say that because fever goes down every time antibiotics are given, it’s probably a bacterial infection. It breaks my heart to see my son in the hospital. What on earth is going on inside this tiny body of his? The only thing I can do for now is to give him the nourishment he needs—my breast milk—and hope that he will get better soon.

November 13, 2011

Hello world!


Hello! I am Sky, Blanca's son , and I was born on Indonesian Hero's day, 2011. I was so ready to come to this world that my mum (and her driver) was worried that I'd be born in the car on the way to the hospital! Fortunately for Mum I was pretty small at 2.6kg, had I been any bigger I'm sure she would have really suffered. Everything went well and I was able to go home the next day and meet my bigger sister, June. She gave me a nice present that I'll use as my doudou!

That's it from me now. Bye!