The early signs of the arrival of our little one were much less stressful then we anticipated. Julie's water broke early Sunday morning. Not a dramatic Hollywood gush but a trickle with little to no discomfort. After confirming the status of our labor at the hospital, we opted to try some home remedies to speed up the contraction instead of staying at the hospital and being induced with medication.
We tried walking up and down the stairs of our 9th-floor apartment 3 times. We tried eating spicy curry and pineapples, and drinking cold water. We even went for a walk up the hill by the Legion of Honor and saw the Cartier exhibit.
By nightfall, the contractions were still far and few... Papa Yang was really nervous about infections so the troop gathered up their luggage again and headed back to the Hospital.
Here are the happy parents-to-be before the induction medication.... little did we know what was coming! When Julie enter the hospital, she was already having contractions every nine minutes. The medication (starting at 2am) ramped up the contractions to every minute within two hours... then it was 2 min on and 0.5 min off... only then did the nurses turn off the medication to let her own body take over. It was a sleepless night.
The grand parents-to-be were sent home that night thinking that the baby will arrive soon after they wake up the next day... but soon day turned into night. Many families had delivered and left already but there was still no signs of our little one.
Since we wanted to have a pain-medication-free delivery, the long labor took all the energy out of Julie. 40 hours of labor later, the medical team determined that Julie would either have to take an epidural and induction medicine so that she could rest and speed up contractions or she will need a C-section. We opted for the epidural. After 2 hours of napping (Mama Yang said she's never heard of someone who has to take a nap in the middle of delivery to deliver a baby ^_^) and 3 hours of pushing later, not much progress was made... so junior was delivered with a vacuum assist! He came out slightly cone-headed but the doctor promised this would soon be gone ^_^ We were all in tears when he arrived. His heart rate was strong throughout the whole ordeal... and he was calm and sleepy when he arrived.
Weighing in at 7lb 15oz, measuring at 20 and 3/4 in long, our little prince brought all of us so much joy and pride that morning.
and here is our little William!!
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