Day 0 of Baby E’s life was “gag”! For me at least.

Because of the high surge of babies born that weekend, we had to be put in a shared room. A SHARED ROOM?!?!?!!!!!!! At first, I was like “Ok, whatever. I have my baby. All is good.” Well, it wasn’t, really. 🙁

The room was tiny and cramped. We were separated by a curtain and we even had to share a bathroom! There was hardly any room to walk. It was just horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE! I’m sure the people on the other side felt the same way. But at least they had the window and a rocking chair! We were closest to the door, so anyone that came in the room had to walk pass us.

I actually felt really good after delivery. Right after the delivery, I was holding the baby while the doctor sewed me up. I think she took a good 45 minutes or so sewing me up. He came so fast, I tore a lot. Yikes! But of course that time passed real quick. Eric and I were just staring at him, counting his little fingers and little toes, trying to decide who he looks like more. Amazed at how much hair he has. Taking pictures of him. Taking pictures, pictures, and more pictures! He just laid on my chest, still covered in amniotic fluid, but he just laid there. Us gazing at him and him gazing back at us. Our doctor commented on how quiet we were. She said she’d never seen a group of people quiet like us. Lol!! What needs to be said? It was just a really precious moment.

Frances brought my mom to the hospital. We then starting texting and posting on FB announcing his birth. This was all still in the delivery room. The PRIVATE delivery room. They even brought me dinner. I was famished! Before this, I was really concerned about being hungry cos we weren’t allowed to eat while in labor. But you know what, you really don’t feel hungry amidst all the contractions! But after delivery, boy had I an appetite!!

After dinner, they wheeled me to the recovery room. The SHARED recovery room 🙁 Well, I did feel bad for the our roommates. We had so many visitors! The Law’s came and brought Pho (Eric’s request). Jeanette even drove all the way from Palo Alto! Then Yu-Hsuan and her family came. (I was actually supposed to hang out with them that day cos Yu-Hsuan was visiting from Utah. Didn’t happen). We were really noisy. A total of ten people visiting all at once, including kids. Good thing we weren’t in the Mother and Baby ward then, cos they wouldn’t have allowed all those people at once.

After this group left, Auntie Lily and Uncle Ken came to visit and brought ginger soup and ginger fried rice. Then later still, Chris and Katrina came and brought my APPLE PIE! and a quilt that Chris made. Super awesome monkey-themed quilt! By that time I was tired. Baby didn’t really cry or wake up that night. It was his first 24 hours, so they’re meant to still be really sleepy. But what kept us up that night was the nurses! They had to keep coming in to do check-ups on me and the baby. I’m pretty sure they did other things to him too. I believe his hearing test and APGAR test and what nots were also taken care of that first night. I can’t remember. Eric went with him. Either way, baby didn’t keep us up. It was the nurses, and the baby on the other side of the curtain!

The room was so small that every time you walked past my bed, you’re bound to brush against the curtain separating us and the people on the other side. And of course when that happens, the curtains separate a little. One time when that happened, Eric went to pull it close and his eyes beheld the mother breastfeeding her baby! Awkward 😉

Going to the bathroom sucked too. Because we shared a bathroom, I had to make sure no one was coming into the room before I went. Especially since the hospital gown is not very modest at the back! And for Eric, him and his bathroom adventures that night! He ate a lot of FiberOne bars while we were in delivery. He had to use the bathroom a lot that night, but he didn’t want to use the shared one in case he was too loud! So, he had to make a trek to the bathrooms in the hallway (wherever they were) to use the bathroom. Not fun for him! But definitely funny for me. 🙂 Funny in retrospect.

Besides the bathroom, the room itself was also really hot!! I was literally sweating and really uncomfortable. And the TV has no sound cos it’s a shared room!! I was pretty miserable.

The next morning when they brought breakfast, I asked to see if anyone had discharged from the private rooms and if they could put me in one of them. The attending nurse then went on to explain how full they were, blah blah blah…. I’ve had it! I was so upset I started balling like a baby! And I think they felt bad, so they arranged for me to be put in a private room as soon as someone discharged. I’m sure that wasn’t so hard! The assistant manager of the nurses saw to that. She even personally wheeled me to our new room.

So, I got my way eventually 🙂 We were even lucky enough to get a room in the corner, away from everyone else. So much better! We were able to control the temperature of the room, Eric could go to the bathroom all he wanted to, and we could watch TV if we wanted to! Lol!!

The second night was more comfortable. But more tired! This time it wasn’t the nurses that kept us up, but baby Ethan! He kept waking up wanting to eat. Obviously, I didn’t have much to give, so feedings took a long time. Maybe he just wanted something to suck on, I donno. But it definitely kept us up all night! Nevertheless, our hospital stay ended on a positive note. Yay! And ‘Yay!’ for an awesome nurse, Alicia, too!

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Ethan Joshua Zhen Jie Lin, our first son, was born on that day.

My mom was scheduled to come on Oct 9 to help me with the baby and with around the house. We were afraid the baby might come early. I was actually admitted to Labor and Delivery when I was 32 weeks pregnant because I had bleeding, cramping, and I was already dilating. I was only 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced, but my doctor sent me there just in case. I was discharged a couple of hours later because my contractions weren’t regular and I wasn’t progressing anymore. I knew it was nothing, even though my doctor panicked a little. So, because of this incident, I had a feeling the baby might come early.

Then again, I asked my mom why she had to have C-sections for all our us. I never knew the reason before. She said she never felt any contractions even though we were already due. Weird how they never induced her instead. Anyhow, then because of this reason, I felt maybe this baby will be late.

I wanted him to come on Oct 10, since it’ll be an awesome date! 10/10/10! But what are the chances, right? I didn’t want him to come on Oct 9 (Sat) because that was the last day Eric and I were to be workers at the Oakland Temple. I also didn’t want him to come on Oct 10 in the morning, because I had to teach Relief Society that day! I was ok if he came after that. That Sunday night, we went to Auntie Lily and Uncle Ken’s house for dinner. We were all joking around saying that the baby should come on 10/10/10 since it’s such an awesome date. But alas, the day was almost over. It wouldn’t happen. Auntie Heidi said that Eric’s mom had a big dinner the night before she had Eric. Since we were having such a big dinner that night, I might have the baby the next day! She was right!

I told baby not come on Saturday or Sunday. And being the very good boy he is, he listened! At 1 am, on Oct 11, I woke up to use the bathroom, and realized that I was all wet. For a second there, I thought I wet myself. But it was quite a lot of liquid, and definitely not pee! I woke Eric up and told him that I think my water broke. He was like, “REALLY?!?!” That night was supposed to be his catch up sleep night. We went to bed slightly early (11pm). He was also supposed to catch up on work that Monday. We were also really good and ironed three shirts for him that Sunday night so he wouldn’t have to do it in the morning. Anyways, I was convinced that it was my bag of waters, so we called Labor and Delivery. They told us to take our time. Take a shower and come in around 3am. Seeing that we still had two more hour of sleep, we went back to bed. But of course, I couldn’t fall asleep anymore! So, we just lied there. At about 2am, I felt a huge gush of water. Definitely amniotic fluid! So I got up, showered. Made myself some food (since they don’t let you eat when you’re in labor), finished packing our hospital bag. And got ready to go to the hospital.

When we got there, we found out that the it was one of the busiest weekends they’ve had in terms of babies being born. 38 babies over the weekend! We were put in an observation room. The doctor had to check to see if it really was amniotic fluid. If it was, then I had to be admitted since there was a chance of infection. They were so busy that that the doctor, after checking me, didn’t come back to confirm that it was amniotic fluid. The nurse came in and tried to hook me up to an IV then told me that I was really being admitted. So, this is it! Baby’s coming!

Funny thing about hooking me up to the IV. Not funny then. My attending nurse tried three times, both hands, poked around in my veins, couldn’t get a blood flow. She got another nurse to try. This nurse tried twice, plus including two jabs of local anesthesia, also failed. Then one of the senior nurses came in, asking if I was ready to move to the Labor room, and found out that these two nurses had failed to hook me up to the IV. Esther Ho. I remember Sudie telling me she had Esther Ho when she was in the hospital with Jasmine. She said how awesome Esther was. And sure enough, while telling the other nurse she should have called her right away, in 30 seconds, Esther hooked me up in one go. Way to go Esther!

So, here I am, with the IV in, but still no contractions! Usually after the water breaks, contractions start coming on their own. Mine didn’t. I took a 30 minute walk around the Labor and Delivery ward. We just went round and round. Surprising how quiet it was. Still nothing. By about 8am, I got my own room. Room 6. Continued to wait for contractions. Nothing. By 9:30, my doctor came. Lucky for me, it was my regular OBGYN, Dr. Bernardette Macart. She told me she’ll get me the oxytocin, a medicine to induce labor, so we get the show on the road! Just like my mom, no contractions! I had to be induced. I saw Dr. Macart last on Friday, Oct 9 and I was already dilated 2 cm, almost 3. She actually swept my membrane. She also said maybe she’ll see me on Monday because she was on-call at the Labor and Delivery ward that Monday. She was right!

After the oxytocin, contractions came full on! I wanted to see how long I can last before I caved and asked for the epidural. Eric’s hospital bag was full so snacks. And one of his snacks were the Maui onion chips. As I was going through my contractions, I was so mad that his breath smelled like Maui onion chips!! I was in pain, and his breath stunk!! By about 12:30pm, I was in dire pain. Contractions were coming every 2-3 minutes. Pretty sure I was in the active stage of labor then. But no one has come to check how dilated I was yet, so we had no idea. It was then that I asked for the epidural. I reasoned to myself not to be so brave. I only had 2 hours of sleep, and who knows how much longer I would be in pain for. I needed the energy to push, so I asked for the epidural.

Since it was a really busy day, the anesthesiologist didn’t come for another half hour. When they came, still no one checked my cervix. When the cervix is dilated past a certain point, they don’t administer the epidural. Dangerous! And bad day for me and needles because this anesthesiologist tried twice, and couldn’t get it in. She said my bones were so close together. What?!?!!! So, she called the other anesthesiologist, and he got it in. Kinda dangerous since they’re sticking something in my spine!! It was about 1:45 pm then. I was grateful for the relief. I could still feel the pressure of the contractions, but not the pain. But that didn’t last long!

Soon, I felt pain again. I felt like I had to poop! And it hurt! Eric called the nurse. Our nurse was unavailable because she was with another patient helping with the epidural. So another nurse came in. She told me that there was this button I could press to increase the dosage of the epidural when the pain intensifies. No one told me that! I told her how I was feeling, and she asked if anyone had checked my cervix yet. She tried to get the doctor, but the doctor was busy, so she checked me herself. She told me I was plus 2. What’s that? Never heard of that expression in all our Childbirth prep classes. It means, the baby’s head was already 2 inches down the birth canal. Great! So that feeling of having to poop, was the bearing down feeling. The feeling of the need to push!

So, about an hour after the epidural was administered, I was in the pushing stage. Here he comes! Eric and the nurse kept saying that they see his head. I couldn’t believe it! I wanted to see it too! So, the nurse got me a mirror. I know. I’d never plan on having a mirror. I thought it was gross. But my curiosity got the better of me. The mirror actually motivated me to push harder. I wanted him out fast! I’ve heard this pushing stage can take a couple of hours. That’s so long! And a few times after I pushed, his head slid out, then slid back in. I was like “NO!!! Come back out!!”

Alas, 45 minutes of pushing. Out he came! I didn’t see him come out. By that time, the doctor was there, in front of me, delivering the baby. So she was in the way of the mirror. I was surprised too! One minute I see the head, the next couple of pushes, and there he was! The feeling was amazing. Super cool! My son was born! Eric said he came out with his right fist next to his head. He does like having his hands balled up next to his face. 🙂

Baby E was born 3:43 p.m. on Monday, October 11, 2010. Exactly 39 weeks of gestation. He weighed in at 6 pounds 5.6 ounces and was 18 inches long. He’s a beauty. 🙂 A joy and blessing in our lives.

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So, as you may or may not be able to guess, we’ve kinda given up on the blog 🙂 We’re not sure what we’re going to do with this space as of yet, so we’ll continue leaving the blog up.  Who knows, we may decide to come back! In the meantime, feel free to see what’s going on in our lives through Facebook.

Eric and Sharn

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I’m still heartbroken over the poor performance of the Cougars this past weekend.  FSU were good, but we just really sucked 🙁 What should have been a good game turned into a blow-out.

I think I’m going to go into mourning cause of this.

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I can’t believe it! I killed my cactus! A cactus! It doesn’t even need watering often and I killed it! It’s not even really much of a cactus. It was a cactus I bought in Arizona and it’s mounted on a magnet, so it’s really small. And I killed it. Wow, seriously don’t get me plants.

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I’m exhausted!!! Seriously! I think I had too much fun over the summer, and too much lazing around, that the first day of work just completely exhausted me! I even had plenty of sleep last night! I slept for at least 8 hours last night. But being on your feet and talking for 6 hours is exhausting. Especially when you have to be entertaining! You have to speak with lots of energy, wave your arms and act silly so they have your attention. 2nd grade is exhausting!!!!

3rd grade last year, the students were more independent. They actually listen, even if you’re on your down day and just can’t be that upbeat for 6 hours. But 2nd grade, no! Any minute you lose the energy, you lose them. There has to be a better way to be engaging, but not to the point of exhaustion. Or is there? Maybe you just need that kind of energy and character to keep their attention.

I have a great class, though. 5 boys and 16 girls. The boys are so well-behaved!! Usually the boys are the trouble makers. But this year, most likely I have girls as my trouble makers. There’s this one girl, OMG!! Killing me! Cannot sit still, cannot stand still, doesn’t listen. I’m gonna have to move her to the front of the class under my nose.

There’s still so much getting used to in 2nd grade. I need to get over this learning curve. I was at least 20 minutes behind on each subject today. Good things it’s just the first day of school and it’s just a lot of practicing routines and procedures. So, I did get done with all I needed to do today.

Ugh! And extended class is in my classroom. That means no peace and quiet for me in my room after school. Kids are there. Parents come in to pick up the kids. Ugh!!!

Ah well, tomorrow is another day. Good luck to me!

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Summer is officially over! School is starting tomorrow. Wow, can’t believe how short this summer seemed. It felt like it went by so fast. It was a jam-packed summer. In 2 months we moved to a new apartment, went to England, went to Australia, had friends come visit, and put on 5 pounds. Yah, the last one not so fun.

I’m still working at Challenger School. Our campus has really expanded! The Pomeroy campus’s lease was up, so they moved all the teachers over. That campus only had preschool and kindergarten. Now we have almost 850 students and almost a hundred staff (and still less than 50 parking spots!!) We have a new elementary director, and I’m teaching a new grade! I taught 3rd grade the last two years. This year I’m going to be teaching 2nd grade. I didn’t really have much of a say in that. Enrollment for 3rd grade this year dropped significantly, so they had to drop one class. And there was an increase in enrollment for 2nd grade, so they had to add another class! Which works out for me I guess. If enrollment dropped, and they had to let go of any teachers, it would probably would have been me since I was the newest teacher! So, new year, new grade.

I’m excited about teaching 2nd grade. In 2nd grade, they’re still young and innocent. They still want to please you and want you to like them. So, it’s easier to make them do things you want them to. In 3rd grade, they’ve got more of their own initiative and sometimes rather cheeky, and not as cute anymore. In 2nd grade, they’re still cute. So, I’m excited!!

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Our school was closed by the Public Health Department yesterday because a kindergardener tested probable for the swine flu virus. Slightly alarming, I guess. Well, perfect timing. I’m really backed up in my grading, so now I have a week to catch up! And I’ll try to catch up on blogging as well!!

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Like Eric said, we spent another Valentines’ Day apart. This is the second year in a row. And of course, he never fails to surprise me. He sent flowers to my school for me. So sweet!

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Wow, it’s definitely been a while since we’ve posted.  My bad for that.  Been busy with work (not a real excuse I know).  So, another brief catch-up:

As mentioned before, we went to Hong Kong and Singapore for Christmas.  We saw both sets of parents, Shem, and Sarah, and did (in my mind) waaaaay too much shopping =)  Good thing we could only take so much home.  Since then, I had my golden birthday (27 on the 27th of Jan) and we had yet another Valentine’s Day apart.  I’ll get around to posting photos from our trip and other things that have been going on…soon (I seem to say that a lot and never get around to it).

Other than that, in reference to the post title, Hamburg, Germany is a really pretty place to visit I’m sure in the summer.  In the winter…if you’re not German, don’t bother going =) It’s grey, on grey, on grey (sounds a lot like Intel – http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/08/conan-obrien-visits-mocks-intel-hq/).  BUT if you do happen to go, regardless of when, some of the best sushi I’ve had is found at a little shop called “Happi Sushi” near the corner of Valentinskamp and Neue ABC-Strasse:

The sushi was surprisingly fresh, the udon noodles super good, and on the day we went it was run by this tiny Japanese grandma and her grandson.  A definite must go to regardless of whether or not you’re craving sushi.

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