Zander's arrIval

Well, I wanted to start of this post by stating that having a second child is no less easier. Granted, you do have more experience and hence you can probably have more accurate guesses on the needs of the baby and/or what's to come. But the sheer effort and energy required is just not any lesser. In fact i think its worse as you are also older!

Anyway, back to the post on Zander's arrival. Well, i guess he definitely has his own timing to follow. I was getting fairly impatient with being pregnant that i wanted to schedule for an induction on the same day he came out. With the plan to go to the hospital at 6am for an 8am induction, I thought I had it all down pat. In fact, it was quite a good feeling, to know that you are getting ready for delivery the next day. I took a long shower, spent quality time with Karine as her last night as a single child, and just enjoyed the final hours turning in early.

Alas, the best laid plans were not to be. At 4am-ish, stomach pains and bloody show signalled the impending labour pains. As the cramps intensified,rushed to the hospital as fast as our Fiat cold take us, with Karine safely at my mum's.

This time was different, as I had already requested for the anesthetist, he was there fairly quickly! The nurses were also moving fast, wheeling me to the delivery room as I was already 5cm dilated when they checked me upon arrival. Within 6 hrs since my cramps started, out popped Zander!

The worst, or best, thing was, he came out with the umbilical cord wound round his neck twice, and a knot further down the cord! Can you imagine the somersaults he must have been up to in the womb! I don't really want to speculate whether that's an indicator of his activity levels when he becomes bigger!

Another good thing doing this second time round, is that I'm not such a noon at the breastfeeding. It really is like cycling, but some refresher tips are always useful. The tips at babycentre.com is really useful, especially the one that comes with the visual diagram. Here's the link: http://www.babycenter.com.sg/baby/breastfeeding/visualguide/

Ok, that's all for now. Will post more pics later once I have them transferred to my iPad. Typing with the soft keyboard is not as bad as I would imagine. I'll blog about how Karine is coping so far and also my thoughts about doing this a second time round and the differences between boy baby and gal baby. Naptime!