I’m supposed to be sleeping right now. But sleep can come later. I wanted to share my thoughts while they are stlil fresh in my mind…

As anyone who is acquainted either with George or I already knows…Thursday was the date of our induction. We were supposed to go to the hospital at 8 a.m., but Tyler had different plans. At 4:45 a.m., I woke up with the now very familiar urge to go to the bathroom, and found myself bleeding. So without a second thought, George and I rushed to the hospital 3 hours ahead of schedule.

Don’t worry, the bleeding ended up not being something of concern. But it did allow the hospital to start my labor early. When I finally felt my first REAL contraction, I got all excited because it didn’t feel like much of anything but a regular menstrual cramp…that is, of course, until the real labor began….I didn’t hesistate to ask for the epidural…Ha. My labor lasted for a total of 15 hours from the moment I found myself bleeding to the moment I layed my eyes on the most important person in my life…

Tyler Yi-Hwei Yu born January 15, 2009 weighing 8 lbs. 5 oz.  at 21 inches long at 7:33p.m.

I’m told my labor was relatively short, eventhough my active labor–which is when you’re actually pushing–lasted for an excrutiatingly long hour.  

I used to think that when people say it’s “love at first sight” when they see their new baby must be exaggerating just a little. And the ones who totally lose it and start bawling in the delivery room are people who are usually pretty emotional anyway.  I can say without a doubt now that either I’m one of those over-exaggerated emotional people, or it’s all true and no matter who you are and how unemotional you think you may be, you’ll be whimpering along with your newborn little baby the minute you see your little daughter or son come into the world. Even George, who prides himself on never showing much emotion almost lost it, and it’s DEFINITELY love at first sight between him and his little girl.

Delivering at Kaiser Baldwin Park gave us the luxury of having our very own private room and having the baby there with us the entire time. They don’t have a nurserywhere they keep all of the babies if the parents want alone time or just time to sleep because they believe in the importance of the initial bonding experience between parents and baby. 

Fortunately, we were at least able to spend the first day and a half with Tyler, because on the night of the second day, the pediatrician informed us that Tyler was Coomb’s positive causing her bilirubin levels to get high. Being Coomb’s positive basically means that the mom’s blood type (o) and the baby’s blood type (either A, B, or AB–in Tyler’s case she’s B+) aren’t compatible and were mixed either during pregnancy or delivery. Because our blood types got mixed, my antibodies were attacking her’s.  The consequences are usually either the baby becomes jaundaced or becomes anemic. In Tyler’s case, since her bilirubin levels were way up, she was very jaundaced and needed to be transfered to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) to lay in an incubator under lights until her levels came back down.

Do you know what the saddest feeling in the world is? Seeing your day-old baby laying naked in an incubator in the hospital’s NICU with her eyes covered to avoid irritation from the UV lights. Luckily she looked comfortable and was sleeping away. Sigh. The nurses said it usually takes 2-3 days before the’ll see any improvements in the levels. Which meant she won’t be discharged from the hospital until then.

Do you kow what an even sadder feeling in the world is? Moreso than seeing your baby at the NICU? I know it’s hard to believe, but there is such a feeling. It’s the overwhelming sense of sadness when you leave the hospital and realize you have to leave your newborn baby behind.

The good thing is that her condition is not very serious and she’s basically in the NICU sunning herself. :) And besides her, there was only one other baby in the NICU, so Tyler was getting a lot of attention.

Anyway, George and I have been going back and forth between home and hospital since we got discharged. It’s such an amazing feeling being a parent. All of the feelings and emotions you hear from your own parents and friends on becoming a parent are all true. There isn’t a single thing in the world I wouldn’t do for my little girl. And the thought of her finally coming home makes me actually look forward to the midnight feedings just so I can have her in my arms.

I don’t know if it’s my hormone levels still acting all crazy, but every little thing seems to send me over the edge. Ha. I opened my email last night and found over 40 messages of well-wishes and THAT got me all emotional. Hehe. So George and I want to thank everyone for thinking about us. We’re so happy to finally be able to introduce our baby girl to the world and can’t wait for her to meet everyone. She really is very lucky to already have so many people love and care about her. Hopefully she’ll be able to come home within the next couple of days…