19 February 2005, Sat

Why isn’t she crying? I asked with concern. As if on cue, Annette let out a shrill, piercing scream, and continued for the next 20 minutes.

Yes, our little darling has arrived at 10:59am, 3 weeks early and right smack on our 3rd wedding anniversary. Boy, she sure is impatient and it certainly looks like she wants to claim her place in the centre of our lives. We had been asking her to arrive any day after 19th of Feb, and guess what. My water broke right after midnight on 19th Feb. :)

After 10 hours of labour and 2 hours of heaving and pushing followed by a nerve-wracking vacuum extraction, I finally became a mummy, something I wouldn’t have dreamt about until last year.

Hubby was all smiles as he looked on in amazement. The paed on standby had to remind him to get into action and start taking photos. He looked a little startled when the gynae asked if he wanted to cut the cord, but bravely did it anyway. He suddenly remembered to do the necessary and gave me a kiss on my tired face.

As I looked on at the whirr of activity in the delivery suite, my gynae plonked a cold metal bowl on my still puff belly and picking up the bloody mess in the bowl, proceeded to point out the placenta and amniotic sac. Thanks but no thanks for the biology lesson.
She then grabbed my nipples in turn and squeezed them. Lo and behold, I’ve got milk! Or colostrum to be more exact. Baby is placed at my breast and she began to suckle. It was the most beautiful moment of my life.