So finally after all of that Friday 23rd September dawned (and I mean dawn as Paul had to go pick up Nineth at 5.30am to get her back to our place by 6am so we could waddle off to the MTR to catch the train to the hospital by 7.15am). Row had asked me for a photo of my final hours as a huge pregnant lady - as she is my sister I obliged her however I did feel it was abusive to peoples eyes.
The hospital was absolutely silent, it was like Paul and I were the only people there, in fact they hadn't even opened the doors to the ward when we got there, we had to knock and get a nurses attention to be let in. I am so glad Paul could be there with me for 3 hours of menial tasks that prepared me for surgery - things like being read the most horrific list of possibilities in the surgery (and to be fair, the english as a second language thing comes into its own in situations like this. Whereas a NZ doctor might say "Look these things never happen but we need to inform you of the very low risk you are taking", a Chinese doctor speaking english says it like this "We will try not to let this happen to you, but if it gets too bad then we will just have to do this so you don't die", or something really cheerful and upbeat like this, "You are aware that if we can't stop the bleeding, even if we try really hard, then we will have to give you a hysterectomy, are you alright with that?" - finally after the third time I had been read the riot act of what could potentially happen in there I stopped one of them and asked her "Have you ever had this happen to someone you were operating on?" "Oh no" was her response - so finally I started to feel a little bit calmer.)
Intermingled with someone taking another blinkin blood sample (I just don't get it - they must have taken 3-4 blood samples over my time in the Chinese hospital system - does your blood type change?? Apparently for matching purposes, but heck couldn't you just look at my blood type from NZ??? Anyway poor intern who came to take the blood, he knocked the whole kit and caboodle off the bed so had to replace just about all of it, poor guy. But anyway inbetween blood taking, horror reports of what could happen, showers and nail polish removal they got me into some of the most feminine coloured hospital gears ever! Pink and purple combo - devine!! It did provide a good laugh for Paul and I - and at least your back is covered as you walk around unlike the lovely Middlemore gowns which leave you shall we say, feeling slightly breezy!
Into the op at 10am, Paul was allowed in after they started operating so he saw Tobias out and yelling within minutes of being there. He was told off each time he tried to peer past the surgeons to where he was, "No looking" was the command given - very private these doctors over here...don't want anyone to see their secret craft....we just had to sit tight and wait for our wee bundle to be bought over. Paul did get one glimpse of him and he reported to me "He's got heaps of dark hair" he said, to which i replied "You are having me on" as our other 2 were born practically bald....but no, Tobias poor kid is setting himself up to be ridiculed by his older brother and sister about the "you were adopted" type of story - he has dark hair and dark blue eyes - pretty different so far to our blonde haired, vibrant blue eyed kids.
Anyway they quickly finished the operation - the surgeon popped out to enthusiastically tell Paul that my insides looked damn near to perfect, hardly could tell I had been the lucky recipient of 2 earlier c-sections - wish the outer shell to my body had the same testimony! But alas it is all too easy to see that I am the mother of 3 children (and I am sure many wonder if it was 3 sets of twins by the state of the stretch marks!!). After they had finished flattering remarks about my insides we were wheeled over to recovery then up to the ward - semi private which was awesome! I don't think I could have coped being in one of there wards with 6 - 8 women. It was lovely having the little guy with us, and other than the nurses who kept showing up to check my blood pressure (that was a real favourite job of the nurses during my stay, every half an hour day and night!!!), it was just Paul and I with little Tobias.
There was only one hiccup with that first night, noone had told me that morphine can make you sick - oh dear, can it ever!!! 6 hours of vomiting later I had briefly noticed a visit from Noah and India to see their little brother, and a family from Paul's school came in to see us and bring food (and I felt so bad that I just could not eat any of it right then and there as she had made me a lovely dinner!). Let me just say that food saved me over my 5 days in hospital - instead of congee I consumed muesli bars, rather than pureed pork or steamed egg white I was lucky enough to have Angeline bring me a pasta dish she had cooked, rather than drink broth I partook of chocolate bickies, and thank you, thank you for the yogurt in the morning as the pork bun just couldn't get past my nose at 7.30am.
There were a couple of hilarious things (and plenty of frustrating things about my cross cultural stay) - one thing was the sign they hung on my curtain that first night. I was the only person in the entire ward with a sign like this - "Breastfeeding in progress" it read. I suppose that just alerted anyone with sensitive stomachs to steer clear of my bed as they might catch a glimpse of my body (who am I kidding, of course they would see all sorts of parts of my body as I tried to remember how to do this job once again). Most of the Hong Kong mums do both bottle and breast feeding from day dot, and apparently alot of them give up on the breast feeding after a very short time (ie days). So pretty different from NZ where they won't give you any formula in the hospital, here you have to explicitly tell them "no formula" - Tobias had a special sign attached to his cot that said he was not to get anything except breast milk as they are rather bottle friendly here.
So apart from their obsession with really unusual things :like intake and output of water in your body - they gave me a jug to pee into - man I felt put out, I thought my days of having to aim at something were over - I was bemoaning the fact that I had to measure my output to Paul when he stated the obvious "why don't you just make it up?" he said. Wow what a brilliant idea!! So finally I got to just relax when I went to the loo!!!. They were also obsessed with my blood pressure, it was like the most important job of the century, and so annoying the sound of them ripping that band off my arm at 3am when I had only just got to sleep after feeding a little guy for an hour!!! The funny thing was no one ever asked me about the state of the old feeding machines, they never checked to see if he was on right, or if I was using the right positions. They weren't overally interested in my wound (not until day 5 when the doctor checked it), nor the state of my stomach as it swelled up and got into some pretty funny looking shapes. It was all about water in, water out, heart beat and baby wee and poo - if I covered those bases then I was home and hose.
But finally my home day approached - with just a little encouragement from me (where I mentioned to the head nurse that if my discharge papers weren't ready by 2pm then we would just have to leave without being properly discharged - well the look on their faces was amazing, shock and horror that I would even think about doing that) we were out of there by 12 and heading home. It is lovely being home, and I feel so much better 2 days on. Even well enough to do a blog about it :) I had to do this one first, but very quickly we are going to do a blog about our first typhoon day which happened today - will let Paul document that exciting day...
