Lily’s Birth Story

The Big Day (from Daddy’s point of view)…

Lillian, you were born last night at 10:33 p.m., Sunday, November 26, 2006. Mimi and I are overjoyed to finally be able to hold you in our arms and tell you face to face how much we love you.

Mimi was so brave last night as she brought you into the world. Her labor started at 4:30 a.m., and she let me sleep until 8:30 or so. From 8:30 to 11:15 we held each other and slowly started getting ready for our trip to the hospital. Mimi took a short bath, and I warmed up a pumpkin spice roll for her that Lee and Sophia had brought over last night. At around 11, Mimi’s contractions started getting stronger and more frequent. There is supposed to be 3-4 minutes between contractions where I figured it would be pretty easy to move from house to car, but it felt like we barely made it out of the house.

When we arrived at the hospital, there was hardly room for us. A nurse took us into an exam room that didn’t have a monitor, but she checked out Mimi and we found out that she was 6 cm dilated and 80% effaced. The last labor and delivery room was being cleaned, and so we waited in the small exam room for over an hour. I don’t know what the hospital would have done if another pregnant woman had arrived!

Our labor and delivery room (LDR) was very nice – we were in room number 1! Based on the strength of contractions, Mimi had already taken a dose of fentanyl, and was ready for her epidural. She rated her pain as 7/10 before fentanyl, 3/10 after fentanyl (which is short-acting), and 2/10 after her epidural. After her epidural, she basically couldn’t even feel her contractions, and so she slept and rested for the next 6 hours.

A little after 9 p.m., the doctor declared that Mimi was fully dilated, and so she started to push. Mimi did a wonderful job pushing. The two things that everyone commented on at the hospital were 1) that Mimi’s toenails were painted, and 2) that her contractions and pushing progressed so well without any pitocin, which virtually every nurse and doctor was surprised at (one nurse said that over 85% over patients use pitocin during labor).

Before we saw any other part of you, we saw your hair. The top of your head squeezed out of Mimi’s birth canal first, so like other vaginally delivered babies, you had a cone-head. Our doctor was with us for virtually the entire pushing period, except for a brief period when she left for a surprise pizza party, because she delivered you on her last night before a year-long sabbatical.

Mimi’s blood loss was the scariest part of the evening for me; after an hour of pushing, you came out in a rush. The doctor had just arrived back in the room from the surprise pizza party, and she saw that you were crowning! She made Mimi wait (breathe through an not push) during one of her contraction cycles, while she was hurriedly preparing herself for the delivery. Your head made it out on 3 big pushes, and then the rest of your body followed. You came out quite blue, but you started crying almost immediately (very loudly!) and turned red in just a few moments. Because Mimi did tear quite a bit, we stayed in the delivery room for over 2 hours, and most of that time the doctor was giving Mimi stitches. For a while, she was losing blood from both her uterus and from where she tore in her birth canal, and it was pretty scary. The doctor did a good job with the stitches, though, and we’re glad that Mimi didn’t need a transfusion. One other memorable part of the delivery was at the end, when the placenta came out. I never expected the placenta to look like that – it was huge! I tried taking a few pictures, but I don’t know if any of them came out.

Our friend Hiro Tsuda was in the delivery room with us, and she helped out a lot. She has been a nurse for a year and half at Stanford Hospital, but she kept that a secret until the last few hours from our labor and delivery nurses. By the end, she had put on gloves and was helping to take care of Mimi.

You scored 9 and 9 on your two apgar tests, which is wonderful. One unique physical trait about you is that you have two blisters, one at the top of each hand, where it looks like you were sucking in utero. When you were born, you were all ready to start feeding, and as soon as Mimi brought you to her breast, you latched on and started sucking wonderfully. You stayed on Mimi’s breast for almost an hour and half.

When we left our nice labor and delivery room, you and Mimi were transferred to maternity. Mimi moved into the new room and had some time to sleep, while I went with you to the well-baby nursery and saw you get your vitamin K shot, saw the evidence of your first pee, and witnessed your first bath. I’m sitting next to you as a type this (there’s no place for me to sleep in this shared maternity room), and I think I just heard your first fart!

So, now it is 7:30 a.m. on November 27th, and you are just shy of 9 hours old. Already you have changed our lives drastically and irrevocably, and we are delighted. Lillian Grace Fang, welcome to the world; we love you so much. This is the first prayer we said over you, shortly after you were born:

May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you, the Lord turn his face towards you, and give you peace.

By the way, we also heard from grandma and grandpa from my side of the family that your Chinese name is Fang Mei Tzun (I really don’t know if the pinyin is correct). Mei means beautiful, and is also the generational name that was given to Sarah, your eldest cousin who lives in New York. Grandpa happened bestow upon you a given name (Tzun) that sounds the same as his given name (a privilege of naming!), but yours means lively and playful (like a kite). Grandpa can also be lively and playful, as you may soon find out, but his name means something different.

We’re still getting used to your unique schedule; how you like to be up at 3 a.m., but you love sleeping during the day. We know that having you as a daughter is going to be a lifelong adventure, and we’re so grateful that God has given you to us, and we have the privilege of raising you to allow you to give your life back to God. Our major prayer requests now are for Mimi’s full post-partum healing, and that God would continue to knit us together as a family.