Friday, December 30, 2005


Looking a bit startled (probably sick of all the photos!), but he doesn't really look like he's only a few days old! Posted by Picasa

Mummy and baby.  Posted by Picasa

Here is a shot of the cute Pirate suit Preston wore for Christmas :) He was the cutest baby at the party! Posted by Picasa

Preston and I at Christmas. Posted by Picasa

Thursday, December 29, 2005


Here is Mr Cutiepie! Posted by Picasa

Saturday, December 24, 2005


What a cutie!! We love Preston so much :) Today has been a very busy day though, with our coffee group this morning at our place - it was so cool to have all the babies born so far hang out together! Then Dan's family were here for the rest of the day/night, and by the end of it all Preston and I were both a bit tantrumy so I'm hoping for a good sleep since we are both very tired. His feeding quantity has increased by double or triple today so I'm guessing he's having a big growth spurt. My milk must be yummy. At least the longer feeds are mostly equalled with a longer sleep too. And my Pam Anderson breasts are getting a bit better now - yesterday when my milk properly came in, they were ENORMOUS and rock hard - I really wished I had somewhere exciting I needed to go that required the most revealing top ever to be worn (or even just taken a photo!), but it's also very painful. Today is much better now that they are starting to deflate :) Well time for bed now. Tomorrow Preston will be 1 week old! Posted by Picasa

It's bath time!!! Bathing is Dan's job (since I get other exclusive jobs), and look - we're getting the hang of it and it's FUN! Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, December 21, 2005


A nice shot of his face for you - I will try to get an awake shot as a comparison - he is so cute :) Posted by Picasa

So peaceful and asleep.....he has to wear mittens since he has such long fingernails and I don't want him to scratch himself. Posted by Picasa

Here is my cutie pie - can't believe we made him! (and that I squeezed him out of me) Posted by Picasa

Sunday, December 18, 2005


Cuddling Posted by Picasa

Happy Family! Doesn't Belinda look great! Posted by Picasa

Preston and his proud dad, about 20 mins after birth Posted by Picasa

Introducing... Preston ShenHao Too.

ITS A BOY.

3.84 kgs, (or 8 pounds 7)
52 cms long
healthy as.

We did it! Wow, we finally made it. I just posted some pics if you really wanna see!
And what a couple of days it has been. I've just managed to steal away from Birthcare, and I am hoping that Belinda and Preston are getting some sleep - neither of them have had much of that since Friday. I've hacked into the baby blog and am gonna tell as much of the story as I can before I fall asleep.

DAY ZERO

So, it all starts on Friday morning, at the bright and early time of 7:30. We were to show up at the Womens Assessment Unit of Auckland hospital for an induction, bright and early, and prepared for a long day.

We had packed lots and lots of stuff, just to make sure we were prepared. A bag of food/snacks, with all of Belinda's essentials (cheese and crackers, fruit, nuts, drinks, museli bars, etc), a bag of clothes for the hospital, a bag of baby clothes, another bag of clothes for post-natal, and my laptop.

Friday started with a lot of monitoring. The on-site midwife wanted to hear the baby's heartbeat, and check Belinda's contractions to see what was going on at that point in time. There was a steady heartbeat, around 130-140 most of the time, and there were contractions going on, not very strong - but fairly often.

This monitoring went on for a good while... over half an hour before our own midwife Jan Clifton turned up to get things going. She gave Belinda some medication to bring on the labour, and pretty much left us to it (as far as I can remember). The medication is meant to take anywhere from 4-24 hours to bring on labour, so we had no idea what would happen.

After that it was down to hourly monitoring to make sure that both Belinda and Baby were handling the medication properly, and up to us to pass away the time for the rest of Friday. We went on lots of walks to make sure Belinda kept moving, checked out the hospital and surrounds, and kept ourselves busy. We ate some great food from the grafton shops down the road, Belinda kept working on a Mr. Men CrossStitch Alphabet Chart that she had started a while ago, and we churned through a heap of Alias Season 3 DVDs that we had bought especially for this.

After a loooooooooooooong day, we decided to try to get some sleep, and prepare for the next day. Belinda was starting to feel a bit of pain by that time, and I had to sleep on a lay-z-boy. Unfortunately for Belinda, she was starting to move into real Labour before we went to sleep - so it wasn't a very good night for her. We had brought along a TENS machine which gave her some pain relief, and one of the midwives was extremely persistent (read: annoying) that Belinda take some panadol.

During the night, every time I roused a little Belinda was in a different position, or milling about the room. She was extremely uncomfortable. The best part though, was that we were expecting this level of discomfort, and it just reinforced the fact that the baby was coming. YAY!

DAY ONE: 17/12/05

Fast forward to the morning, and Belinda was really really sore. It was very hard for her to speak, so all I could do was give her massages, and make sure she was OK. We asked the midwife to call Jan back in for an assessment, and hopefully things were already underway.

Jan finally arrived back in at around 8-ish (memory is hazy here) and gave Belinda an inspection. She was 1cm dilated. After the whole night of effort and pain, we had hardly progressed at all. Poor Belinda.

Well, we needed to move things along, since Belinda was in a whole lot of pain, and things needed to happen. Belinda's waters were broken, and Belinda was moved to the Delivery Unit down the hall. There was a little mucousa when the waters broke, which usually indicates that the baby is a little distressed.

It was about 8:30 by now, and we put Belinda into the shower to try some water for pain relief. I got into my togs and kept the water on her lower back, which was one of the most painful parts at that time. Belinda was starting to buckle with the pain, so we requested an epidural for pain relief. We wanted to do our best to avoid pethidene, which we heard had strong negative effects on the baby.

The epidural for those of you who don't know, is placed directly into the spine. Pain relief is administered through a small tube, and is able to be topped up every now and then. I highly recommend it!

So belinda was placed on a drip (which included some syntocinin - which helps bring the labour along as a synthetic form of oxytocin), and had a couple of blood samples taken. Then she was asked to stay as still as humanly possible while this epidural was placed into her spine. Thank goodness for a fantastic anaesthetist, it all went smoothly and within a few minutes belinda was OK. She started chatting again, and could have a brief sleep.

Fast forward to 11:15 am, and our first inspection after moving to the delivery unit - OMG 6cm! WOW! A sigh of relief (kinda) from Belinda, we were making progress. Epidural was topped up, and belinda could relax.

Fast forward again to 1:30pm and our second inspection: and well, we could see the baby's head. I gotta tell ya - now that was exciting. Belinda was still under pain relief, everything was fine, and Jan basically told us that we would just start pushing. It was a flurry of activity as Jan got everything ready, we prepared Belinda, and Helen made her way over to help me out.

BIRTH

There's not a lot to say about the rest of the birth. Belinda did remarkably, but since she was still under pain-relief, it wasn't too difficult for her. She could still feel what was happening (thanks to the epidural's light dosage), and just pushed with the contractions. Each push made some progress, and we needed to adjust position slightly over time to help the baby along.

After an hour of pushing, and an episiotomy, the head was out, then the body, and it was all over! The pain was definitely enormous for Belinda for the last few pushes, but she did extremely well, and was all OK. Once everything was under control, I jumped on the phone to the direct family, then rushed back in to help. Belinda needed a few stitches, and Jan did everything to clean up in no time. Baby was perfectly healthy, opened his eyes, and yelled at us straight away. He fed within 20 minutes or so, once Belinda was all OK.

Belinda had lost a lot of blood, and was fairly pale white. She threw up as soon as she sat up, so I did my best to slow things down a little for her. I sent out a mass-text to everyone in my phone, and did my best to ignore the half hour of constant ringing from it. Sorry if I didn't get back to you, but my attention really was on Belinda and the baby. We slowly packed up - Belinda was taken out of the hospital in a wheelchair, I brought along the car, and we moved to Birthcare (the Auckland Central Post-natal care facility).

Belinda was greeted at Birthcare with a gourmet meal, and once we were all settled in, we had some visitors etc etc.

I went home at about 9ish... extremely exhausted, and hoped that Belinda would get some sleep. Tried my best to email pics, but I was too tired, couldn't find Belinda's blogger password, so I gave up and hit the bed.

DAY TWO - 18/12/05

I got to birthcare at 8:30 ish. Belinda had had a rough night, with lots of screaming, feeding and so on. Our baby is HUNGRY. He's also LOUD. It's great. His cries make us really happy, cause we know he's healthy! I'm so proud, and am laughing out loud as I write this.

Today was a long day, and I don't really have much to write. We did our best to keep the baby happy, despite his constant hunger. There were lots of visitors, and gave everyone their chance to meet the baby - who we announced as Preston ShenHao Too. We'd come up with the name around August or so, before we heard of 2 other occurences of it. Mum had actually chosen it amongst others, and had emailed us a list. We loved it straight away, and have been calling him that at home whilst in the womb.

Belinda has only really had a few hours sleep in total over the last 3 days, so hopefully there are no more visitors for a few days. Her pain relief is wearing off too.

Feeding is easy for Belinda (relative to stories we have heard), and Preston is latching on really well. Preston is feeding every hour or two, and is the loudest baby in the building. honest. I gave him his first bath this evening, much to his discomfort. He's clean now, in outfit #2, and hopefully asleep.

I left at 8:30 pm, and we had a great day overall. All the grandparents are absolutely stoked, everyone who has visited is really excited for us, and we're adjusting to the baby really well.

Well, what a day! Hope you enjoy the pictures posted above this, Belinda will probably post a little more in a couple of days when she is out of Birthcare.

In the meantime, I'm gonna get some sleep.

Dan.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

It's Eviction Day tomorrow!

So far there is still no baby...I can't believe it. I've grown so big in the last 10 days as well that now I have lovely stretch marks all over me. Grrr. But I guess since they are just new, they will hopefully go away quickly. Can't be bothered taking another photo - just imagine my swimsuit photo enlarged a bit. I'm so giant that pretty much all I've been wearing this week is a sarong! At least its comfy and 'airconditioned'. (it's been SOOOO hot).

I've been taking cold baths to try to cool down, but the last couple of weeks my feet and hands have started to swell a little, and when I get out of the bath I've got elephant feet until the next day. It took me three days to get my engagement ring off without ripping my whole finger off, but I can't get my wedding ring off. Hopefully this puffiness goes away soon. No shoes fit, and I have resorted to wearing jandals, but even they are too tight sometimes!

So with no baby yet and being 10 days overdue today, we have an induction set for tomorrow morning :( I really didn't want to do that, but I'm running out of time. Hurry up baby - you have about 19 hours to change your mind and come out on your own!

Haven't got the instructions yet for any preparation required, but the method is via a prostaglandin hormone pessarie thingy that is supposed to stimulate contractions.

I just got the report from my scan the other day - and this baby is going to be huge! OH NO! I don't know how its going to fit out of me - the estimated weight is just over 8 pounds! I was expecting something in the range of 6.5 - 7 pounds. Well that really puts me in a bad mood - now my odds of having a caesarian are higher. And the margin of error is 6.8pounds - 9pounds! He better be on the smaller side....yikes. Now I'm all scared!

The next message should hopefully be some news of the baby - but don't forget if you want us to text or pxt you straight away, please email me.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Scan was fine

I had a scan this morning to check for amniotic fluid levels and they were all fine. All the anatomy checks were great as well, so there is a happy little baby inside me. It was nice to have a little preview as well - I got to see a cute little button nose and some cute little lips!

So we are being induced on Friday morning, unless an appointment becomes available sooner, or if things start to happen on their own.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Eviction date is set

Just came back from my midwife. I am now 41 weeks - that is 1 week overdue!! Come out little baby!

Unfortunately there are no signs that he is going to come out by himself in the next day or two, so we have set an induction date for Friday morning. He's getting evicted if he doesn't move out by then.

Tomorrow morning I have to have a scan to check that there is enough amniotic fluid and placental function to last until Friday, otherwise I'll have to see if I can induce earlier (although at this stage Friday is the earliest appointment available).

So that is my NO BABY YET news. Grrrrr.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

:( Getting very frustrated now...

Can't believe it's now saturday night and I still have no baby. I'm going to possibly lose it at the next person who says something well-meaning like 'well the baby will have to come out sometime!' or 'first babies are often late' - yes I have heard these a million times from all sorts of people (mostly random people I don't know, like in the supermarket) and it does NOT make me feel better hearing it so much. You wouldn't believe how many strangers insist on asking when the baby is due. I am never going to 'politely' make conversation with a pregnant woman again - it's soooo irritating!!

I had a bit of an emotional meltdown last night, so I was sure something was about to happen seeing as I haven't had any emotional issues the whole pregnancy, but still nothing. Now I'm very concerned about the prospect of being induced (I have an appointment on Monday to discuss the options). I don't want to be induced, but I also don't want to wait any longer than Monday or Tuesday to have the baby - otherwise he will be so big that he wont fit out of me anyway, and I certainly don't want to have a caesarian. So there is a bit of urgency that this baby hurries up and decides to move out tonight or tomorrow!!

I suppose the only potential good thing is that even though all the other babies born in my antenatal group were early and are very small (except for one who was born on the due date and is normal sized) that my baby will hopefully be normal sized and healthy. And cute. There better not be any complications or health issues.

That's it for now, I'm a bit grouchy as you can tell.

Friday, December 09, 2005

I'm feeling sorry for myself :(

Just came back from my coffee group - where BOTH the other ladies due to have their babies this week had them on Tuesday! :( So now I'm determined to have this baby tonight - I'll have to try more things to help bring on labour. But I guess the baby will come out when he is ready. Better not be any later than Sunday.

Sigh...

Still nothing. I'm starting to wonder if I'm even pregnant at all, or if it's just been my imagination all this time.

This morning I have to embarrassingly go to my coffee group, WITH NO BABY! There are three of us in the group due this week, and we were all planning on having our babies with us this week - and I was the first due out of us. So if there are other new babies there today, I'm going to be jealous :(

I'm just so huge at the moment and so tired - even though I had nothing planned for this week since I assumed I would be in hospital, I can't even do much at home since I've run out of power and simple things like bending over or doing the dishes are difficult because of my enormous tummy. There is a lot of housework, tidying, unpacking etc to do, but I just can't (be bothered, mostly).

We need some more name inspiration since our ONE choice we had has kind of been ruined by a few different people. We may still use it, but if you have any good ideas, please let us know!!

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Where's my baby??!!

No post yesterday because nothing happened. I suppose I felt a bit stranger than usual, but Dan said that was just my humour.

Still woke up again this morning without having gone into labour...grrr... but since I've been up for the last hour or so, I've had about 8 small contraction-type things, so maybe something will happen today! They are like a tight tensing up of my stomach muscles for about 10-20 seconds, and are not painful, I'm just quite aware of them. So even if they are contractions, I'm still a loooong way off yet. But I hope they are and I hope they increase so I can have our cute little baby today!

Maybe I'll have a better update in a few hours.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Today's midwife appointment

Can't believe I actually had to make my appointment :( The midwife was surprised too! She said she really thought I would have had the baby by now, but obviously it's still happy inside me. Dan has a theory that my placenta is so healthy that the baby has no need to leave yet (normally from about 39-40 weeks the placenta starts to deteriorate which may be a reason labour is triggered).

She thinks it wont be too far away, as the baby's head is very far down into my pelvis, and its heartbeat is great, my blood pressure is great and everything is favourable. So it can't be long now I hope.

As a backup plan, we have an appointment scheduled for next Monday to discuss an induction if I still haven't had the baby by then. Let's hope I don't need to keep that appointment!

Monday, December 05, 2005

No news today either

For all you dedicated daily blog-readers, I thought I had better let you know that NOTHING HAS HAPPENED YET! Just in case you were getting all excited thinking that I haven't posted anything yet, so therefore I must be in the hospital.

The due date according to the scans was today, and the due date according to my calculations is tomorrow. So this baby can't be too far away.

I'm sure that once contractions start and we decide to go to the hospital that I will be able to spare a few minutes to post here first so you can REALLY get all excited!

Fingers crossed it happens soon. I have a midwife appointment in the morning.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Hurry up and come out!!

Still no baby.... my tummy is getting very uncomfortable now since there is no room to play inside, just room to stretch and POKE. Ouch.

I've been hoping for days now to hurry up and start labour, but still not much. I think I may be getting a bit closer today - I've had a couple of weird stomach cramps which could potentially be mini contractions, but they stopped hours ago.

So now I'm trying everything I can think of to trigger labour (without being medically induced), including all the nutritional and herbal things I know of, plus I did a search on the internet and resorted to trying a whole list of old wives tales. I think I have tried everything on the list. I'm currently eating a giant pineapple fruit salad which is my last resort. I might go for another strenuous walk up some hills soon - it felt like it was doing something yesterday.

Oh well, the baby will come when he is ready, but it better not be too many more days otherwise he might not fit out! I've been so ravenously hungry this week so I assume there is a growth spurt going on....

Friday, December 02, 2005


Here is the map to Birthcare where I will be staying after having the baby (hopefully today or tomorrow or SOON!). You can click on the map to make it bigger. The address is Birthcare, 20 Titoki St, Parnell. If you want to come to visit (please do!) I think visiting hours are 2-8pm, but maybe call first to check. If you are coming from Remuera area, come up Ayr St and through the funny intersection down Domain Rd and turn into Titoki St when you hit the domain. Or if you are coming from the motorway, get off at Khyber Pass and make your way to Carlton Gore Rd, then turn into George St (with all the fancy terrace houses), and then into Titoki St. There is lots of parking. Posted by Picasa