It's been super long since I've updated this blog. Life was nuts. We're still in a pandemic; work was super busy; Emily is an active 3 year old - but so many things have happened, such as...
WE HAD A BABY!
Kevin Adam Sung was born on August 28, 2021 at 11:59pm. It was quite an experience, as you would think. Kevy's real due date was supposed to be Sept 4, but I knew he was going to come early. For an entire week before his due date, Sy and I were so nervous that he was going to come that night. We were especially anxious because none of our family was around to help out if we went into labor. Sy's parents were in the Poconos with their friends, and Sy's sister's family was in the Hamptons for a week. If we went into labor, we had nowhere to drop off Emily while I had to go to the hospital. Thankfully, Kevy didn't come so early where our family wasn't around. But he did come early on the Sat night before my scheduled c-section that Monday.
We had spent the day at the Long Island Children's Museum with Sy's sister's family, and were enjoying an easy McDonalds meal with the kiddos, when I felt a strange contraction around 7:45pm. I had been experiencing Braxton hicks contractions for quite some time, but this one had felt a little more painful than before. I mentally checked the time to see if I needed to start timing anything. I gave Sy a look of apprehension and told him I just had a weird feeling. We both groaned with anticipation that this could be it - that our easy life of 3 was coming to an end. Sure enough, 30 min later, I felt another strange contraction. I told Sy we should go home asap. When we got home, we quickly got Emily ready for bed, and I started to notice that the contractions were now happening more like every 15 min. I called my doctor, and even while on the phone, I started noticing the contractions were coming like every 5 minutes. My doctor told me to head over to the hospital and she would meet me there. We called Sy's parents and told them to come over our house asap so we can head to the hospital. I started feeling very emotional thinking about the fact that I would be leaving Emily for a few days. If I stayed in the hospital for 3 days, that would be the longest we'd been apart since she was born.
When we got to the hospital, my contractions just kept coming faster. They were coming about 3 minutes apart, and they put me on a bed to start to measure my contractions. I was already dilated at 4 cm, and I was really starting to feel pain. My doctor was still not there, and we were all just waiting for her to arrive so I could go in for my c-section. However, time just kept ticking, and she was still not there. My contractions were coming 1 min apart, and I was in a LOT of pain. Each contraction felt so painful, and I felt such a strong desire to push the baby out. Very soon after, I thought I had peed myself, and when I told the nurses, they saw that my water had broken. I was dying with pain, and I kept begging for an epidural, but they wouldn't give it to me bc I was going to go in for a c-section, so they wanted to wait until I was ready to go into the OR to get my epidural. But my doctor was still nowhere in sight. I was cursing and yelling at Sy "where the f*ck is dr. ahamed!?" And just trying to bear the contractions. I'm pretty sure I was pooping myself with every contraction. Finally, my doctor had arrived, but by the time she came, the baby had reached an emergency state. I was looking like it might be close to potentially rupturing my sutures from my last c-section. So my c-section turned into another emergency c-section, and then they rushed me to the OR. From there, I had to sit super still while they tried to get my epidural in despite my contractions, and finally, I felt sweet relief. From that point on, the c-section happened super quickly, and the baby was born/out by 11:59pm - a minute before midnight. By the time I was done being stitched back up, it was close to 1am, and I was exhausted. By the time we finished the 2 hours of recovery floor time, I didn't get to my hospital room until about 4am, and we were so tired and just ready to sleep.
We stayed in the hospital for just 2 days bc we wanted to be home with Emily - since she had been staying with her grandparents. I was still pretty sore and not walking well, but it was already a sign of how different giving birth to a 2nd child is. Life is still more about your first child than yourself.
For the past 2 months, it has been a crazy whirlwind of exhaustion, never-ending tasks, and busy-ness. I never imagined that life with 2 kids would be THIS hard. But it surely is.
Week 1-2 - Adjusting to being so sleep deprived from the constant feedings, but never getting to nap bc of needing to entertain a 3 year old is so hard. It was definitely not like when we had Emily. With Emily, we napped when she did, and we were okay. This time around, we were not napping during the day, and we still had to find time to cook Emily's meals, clean up the house of her toys, do her laundry, play with her, and what not. On top of that, Emily had just started nursery school. So it was a lot to figure out our new school schedule with her, and figuring out lunch box packing, and just dealing with her new life as a school student.
Week 3-4 was the beginning of Kevy becoming fussy. He stopped napping well, and was also dealing with pain from his circumcision procedure. We also discovered that Kevy had reflux issues. He would cry super hard as he drank his milk bottle. He arched his back, turned red in the face, cried and cried, and looked like he was in such pain. I really dreaded all the feedings bc I was scared he was going to have a reaction and it would be a difficult feeding. I worried so much about him and how much pain he was in.
Week 5-6 was super hard bc it was leading up to the peak of fussiness (week 6), and he was just not sleeping at all. He would sleep 20 min naps, and then that's it. We'd spend the rest of the hour and half trying to put him back to sleep with vigorous rocking and shushing. On top of that, he got his first cold (thanks to Emily getting sick), and we think that added to his discomfort.
Week 7 - Kevy got sick AGAIN bc Emily got sick again from school.
I'm going to publish this entry now bc it's taken me months to write it. I'll try to write again when I can!
