The General Chronicles - Part 2

We finally meet our little general!

Unlike his elder sisters, his delivery was drama-free. He stuck to the scheduled c-section plan and there were no complications.  Everyone was surprised at the hospital that I didn't have to take insulin this time around for the gestational diabetes. Usually, it would be the other way around, later pregnancies were likely to rely on insulin.  But hey, this is the General we are talking about. He is quite special.

So why "General", you might ask. It was Aqui who started calling him the general while he was still in my tummy. Out of the blue, she said "I think we should call him "General".  I asked why and she said she just wants to. So it got stuck.  Even Ia started calling him "baby general".  And so we thought of great generals for his real name, and ofcourse, there's no one greater than General Alexander the Great. And because Alex reminds me of the lion in the Madagascar movie (whom I am not fond of), I prefer to call him Axle.

The birthing experience

I had to go through emergency c-section for Aqui and Ia and so there was much drama and tension there. With Axle, it was calm and quiet. Sure, I still had some fears that things might go wrong - the anaesthesia might not work or something like that- but all of these we raised to God in our prayers.  Ronnel was with me in the operating theatre, armed with his DLSR so he can capture every second of that goo dripping from baby's skin.  I heard the surgeons talking about a cord around his neck so they had to act quickly and extract him and then there was a big cry resonating the theatre. He made his presence known.   They immediately cleaned him up, gave him to Ronnel for a quick cuddle and put him on my chest for the skin to skin experience. He stayed there for 25 minutes while the surgeons were sewing up.  According to the midwife, this skin to skin session helped a lot in calming him down. True enough, baby Axle is a really chilled out baby.  He latched on for breastfeeding quickly and while the other newborns in the neighbouring rooms cried all night, he just slept, ate and pooed. No dramas.

First Night

Aqui and Ia both had to spend their first night in NICU because of the gestational diabetes complications.  With Axle free from that, he spent his first night in the room with me.  Ronnel had to leave at around 8pm to pick up the girls as it was a school night and Aqui had to go to school the next day.  We are truly lucky to have our carer Racheal so helpful - the girls were all bathed and in their pyjamas when Ronnel picked them up.  Meanwhile, Axle and I are in the room and he was really cooperative.  The epidural was still working so I couldn't move my legs nor get up to cuddle him. I had to rely on the midwives to pick him up from his bassinet and give him to me for a feed.  Eventually, I just had him beside me the whole night so that it would be easier to feed him -- which meant I wasn't able to sleep at all.  But it's ok, sleep is overrated anyway.

Middle child blues

We did FaceTime with the girls to show them baby Axle and we noticed that while Aqui was enthusiastic and excited to see baby, Ia didn't share the same enthusiasm.  She wasn't saying anything and was frowning at baby during the whole FaceTime conversation.  When they eventually met, Aqui wanted to cuddle and hold him while Ia kept her distance.  It took an hour or so for Ia to warm up to him and eventually, she was stroking his hair and kissing him as well.

Extra bonus

On baby Axle's birthday, I got word from work that I was selected for an achievement award (Chief Executive Award) and that was a really happy news for me.  I was quite anxious at work because it hasn't been even a year since I left BNZ and joined the Ministry of Justice before I fell pregnant.  And so it came as a surprise that I was able to deliver even beyond the target.

Road to recovery

It's day 3 in the hospital  and hopefully, we will be discharged tomorrow. We've had visits from friends and it was great to see them enamoured by our little general.  We're also very grateful to our friends for being part of the child-minding roster, to take turns in looking after Aqui and Ia while I'm recovering and focusing on baby Axle.  That's life overseas,  our extended family is our friends and we have to rely on each other more and more.

And so we live day by day and look forward to our adventures as we are now complete and able to volt in, Voltes 5!