DAY 14 (11/21/2018)

DAY 13 (11/20/2018)

DAY 12 (11/19/2018)




DAY 11 (11/18/2018)



DAY 10 (11/17/2018)

DAY 9 (11/16/2018)





DAY 8 (11/15/2018)



DAY 14 (11/21/2018)
DAY 13 (11/20/2018)
DAY 12 (11/19/2018)
DAY 11 (11/18/2018)
DAY 10 (11/17/2018)
DAY 9 (11/16/2018)
DAY 8 (11/15/2018)
Day 7 (11/14/2018)
Day 6 (11/13/2018)
Day 5 (11/12/2018)
Day 4 (11/11/2018)
Day 3 (11/10/2018)
Day 2 (11/9/2018)
Day 1 (11/8/2018)
Care Bear and I welcomed baby Dash into the world on November 8, 2018, Thursday at 7:06 pm at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. He was 7 lbs 3.5 oz and 19 in (48.5 cm). It was four days past our due date and a day before my birthday! Dash came with the California fires.
I also had nitrous oxide (laughing gas) three times before the epidural: 1) to help me get through a cervical check (7:30 am, 4.5 hours post check-in), during which I was 3 cm open; 2) the intentional rupture of membranes (10:30 am, 7.5 hours post check-in), after which brown water, which was amniotic fluid with meconium, came gushing out of me; and 3) for staying still during epidural injection (11:30 am, 8.5 hours post check-in). I went from 6 cm dilated (12 pm, 9 hours post check-in) to 10 cm dilated (3 pm, 12 hours post check-in) in three hours, during which both Aaron and I took a nice 1.5 hour nap.
At 3 pm, when I was turning to the other side on my bed during my nap, my nurse, who was monitoring the screen remotely, came in saying she lost the baby’s heart beat. She fixed the monitor then she pressed a button and what seemed like about 5-6 nurses and a resident doctor rushed in, waking up Care Bear and I from our naps. I had what they called a deceleration of the baby’s heart beat. Thankfully, the baby’s heart rate came back to normal (or was re-found?) and I was told we can start pushing!
After getting ready to push, which involved cleaning up around me, raising my legs, installing the squatting bar, notifying the doctor, etc, we took a few snaps and we began pushing!
The placenta was born a minute after the baby. I did not feel it and did not know about it until about 30 minutes later when the doctor told me.
The baby started breathing normally quickly and was put on my chest. The baby latched immediately.
While I was pregnant and was reading other people’s birth stories online, I had wondered what feeling I would feel when I met my baby for the first time, i.e., when the baby was first put on my chest. I finally arrived at that moment when the baby was first put on my chest, and the feeling I felt was . . . : 1) “Wow his eyes are so focused and they are staring directly at my own eyes! It’s so cool a newborn can make direct eye contact at birth!”; 2) “Awesome, I finally have a baby now. A half-white, half-Asian baby no less. Wish list item checked off. Good job to myself. Now moving on!”; and 3) “The baby was a boy all this time! I thought the baby was a girl this whole time! OMG HAHA.”
Those were my three thoughts at that instant I met my baby for the first time. I was surprised that I was not feeling emotional or getting teary. I was feeling surprisingly matter of fact and dry. In fact, for the next half hour, when the doctor was stitching me up, I was thinking of things to make small talk with the doctor and making jokes.
Here is a card I wrote my obgyn who delivered Dash, which I gave to her along with a box of chocolates at my 6 week appointment. I am so grateful for her.
COMING SOON…
COMING SOON…
COMING SOON…
After five years of marriage, Care Bear and I finally made it happen!
I found out that I was pregnant on the night of my California bar exam, on February 27, 2018, Tuesday. I had noticed a few signs of conception for a week or two leading up to the bar exam. But I had held off on taking a pregnancy pee test because I did not want to be distracted from studying for the bar. The symptoms included losing 3-4 lbs in a span of two weeks, diarrhea, loss of appetite, and eating food I rarely ate before (potato).
On the night before the exam, Care Bear sweetly offered to join me to stay that night at a hotel a few blocks from the bar exam center, in downtown Oakland. That evening, I had diarrhea and could not eat dinner because I was not feeling well. Care Bear had made a snack run and had brought back potato chips. And I ate some potato chips! This is newsworthy to me because I normally do not eat anything potato because I think it tastes bad. Little did I know that this rare nibble at chips was a sign of an enormous craving for anything potato to hit me later in pregnancy and to stay with me until today (Wendy’s baked potato, anyone?).
After I took the bar exam, Care Bear was waiting for me just outside the doors of the exam room. I was so happy to see him and was so exhausted from the bar. We walked to a Thai place and had dinner. I had a mango cocktail, which was delicious. This was the last of the alcohol I was going to taste for 9 months (or not).
When I came home that night, I took a pregnancy pee test and it showed a Big Fat Positive (BFP). I’ve been taking these tests for at least the past four months, several times a month, all of which had shown negative, i.e., no line. So, to finally see a faint positive line would have you think that I flipped out in joy or showed happiness, right? Nope. I was so exhausted and sleep deprived that when I saw the faint line, I tossed the test strip into the trash immediately, did not care to tell Care Bear about it, and went straight to bed.
I took the pregnancy pee test again the next day, and this time, when the line showed up (which was instantly), I brought it to the living room and showed it to Care Bear. Care Bear said “Oh my god honey, are you pregnant?” (or something like that), and gave me a sweet back hug.
In Korea, when you’re pregnant, it is common to give the uterus baby a nickname (태명) that is meaningful. I decided to name the uterus baby Dash because he/she came suddenly and unexpectedly. I had been trying to have a baby for five years and sometimes it was difficult to be hopeful. Then came Dash rushing in to surprise us!
That is the story of how I got pregnant and how I found out!