The Arrival

The long wait for the arrival of our daughter has finally come! Jasmine Ha Eun Lee was born 12:10 p.m. on November 7, 2007, at Guam Memorial Hospital (GMH).

I praised and thanked God for having a positive birthing experience. Quite honestly, the thought of delivering had frightened me because of the intense physical labour I knew that was entailed, but God saw me through and put me in the hands of the wonderful nursing staff of GMH and my HCP, Dr. Randal Sloop. My water bag did not break until I came close to being almost complete at 9 cm in the labour and delivery room. I felt I was going delirious during the contractions, that I was practically seeing stars. I rated a 4 on a pain scale rated 0-10, which escalated to 5 after my water broke and gradually escalated until I started crowning. Wow, those contractions came so fast! I could feel them starting out, but did not push until they were more intense. All the nurses helped me altogether by chanting, counting, and reminding me about the breathing techniques. Ken's coaching by hard deep breathing was making me nervous, but he says he was feeding off of how strong I was being. I felt like breaking down and crying a couple of times when the intense pain started.The baby needed to move and pass under the pubic bone, then once in position it was a higher pain scale due to the stretching the head was doing. Pushing during the contractions helped the pain somewhat. Words of encouragement helped make things go quickly when I would hear "you're doing great" or "you're almost there." When I asked how much longer it would take for the baby to come out, Dr. Sloop called out four more contractions within half an hour, and sure enough after four more the baby popped right out.

Throughout the process, I tried my best to be polite to the nursing students, Yunique and Rachelle, and the other staff nurses, Jeannette, Rachel, and Edith, but the pain was unbearable during the contractions - every stimuli, especially touch escalated ten fold. For example, one of the nursing students was holding on to my leg, and I told her with an intense and stern voice to "PLEASE get your hand off my leg, thank you!"

In the delirium of labor, I was calling out that I wanted pain medication, but was too late to get them if I wanted to anyway because of how close the head was to being delivered. I was glad for that because I originally planned for a natural birthing experience.

Ken and I are now feeling the weight of the responsibility of raising this tiny person, but we're definitely stoked about the idea of being parents! Wow, I'm a mother and Ken's a father! =) The feeling is still pretty surreal.