Flashback of Zaczac - 1st Month

The delivery room was filled with Zaczac's cries and voices of my hubby who was busy calling family members to inform Zaczac's arrival. I was still trying to recover from the delivery process. I felt tired but yet I couldn't stop myself from looking at my bub.

After the nurse took bub away from me, she placed him in the incubator with UV lights to warm him up. She was also cleaning him up and gave him the first injection of his life, first dosage of Hepatitis B. I can still remember clearly that bub's eyes were already opened and looking around. He was so curious even though he could hardly see clearly. Here's the first few pics of my bub...

Both hubby and I have been waiting for this day to come, and here is our dearest bub. He looked so charming and sweet, doesn't he?

Once the nurse was done with Zaczac, I have requested to carry zaczac and let him start his first mission, i.e. learn to latch. To my surprise, Zaczac could find his way to my nipple and he latched on easily. Both hubby and I praised him! He is a fast learner, isn't he? The first few drops of the colostrum is very important for babies, that was why I insisted breastfeeding from day one.

The feeling of carrying Zaczac in my arms was so warm and sweet. He is here at last, I keep telling myself. I could see him at last, after a long wait!

The nurse took Zaczac away from me for thorough wash up, while the other nurse washed me. I felt too tired to move. After wheeling me back to my room, both hubby and I dozed off right away until Zaczac was pushed into my room fresh and clean. He was swaddled up and looked really cute. He was given BCG on the second day. The mark is still visible on his butt today.

I was in Gleneagles Hospital for 3 days 2 nights. Zaczac slept with me every night and that was the start of motherhood and sleepless nights. The nurse suggested that Zaczac could sleep in the nursery and pushed him over when he needed his feeds, but I wouldn't bear to separate from him, after all, he was in my womb for 9 months! I just wanted to bond with him as soon as possible.

After I was discharged from the hospital, both hubby and I moved to my parents' place for my confinement. I hate confinement, but I had to follow, thank goodness my mum allowed me to shower and wash my hair!

Hubby and I started our official parenthood and sleepless nights on that day. All I could remember my daily chores were breastfeed, express milk, wash bottles, change diapers, ... till today. There were a couple of time when my nipples were so sore from Zaczac's impatient latch. It bled. I had engorgement and it was very painful. I couldn't sleep and felt so stressful. Hubby encouraged me all the time and even took the effort to search for a lactation consultant to guide me through. I remembered having cabbage treatment, it felt really good. I was also glad that my friends were very encouraging, giving me all the advises and tips to guide me along. I told myself I will feed Zaczac breastmilk for at least 6 months!

Zaczac was on full breastmilk for 3 weeks, until my supply couldn't cope with his demand. That gave me alot of stress and that caused my supply to go down further. I was reluctant to supplement him with formula. In the end, I gave in and supplement him with enfalac. Somehow after supplementing him with formula, I was not as stressful as before and milk supply slowly increased. I only fed Zaczac formula at night, and full breastmilk during the day.

My mum bathed Zaczac every day, he was too fragile for me to handle him. I enjoyed seeing him bathe, he just love kicking in the water!

Zaczac gets startled easily. So to make him sleep better, we have decided to prone him, that is sleeping on his stomach. I was reluctant in the first place after reading from many guide books, but Zac seems to like sleeping in that position. We just had to be careful and observed him when he slept.

I remembered rocking him to sleep every night. After he was born, his bioclock was in chaos. He slept in the day and awake during the night. Hubby and I had to take turn to rock him to sleep. He would wail and wanted to be cuddled at all times. It was too early to train him, but somehow he adjusted his bioclock himself as the weeks went by. *phew*

Three weeks went by, it was time to register Zaczac's birth certificate. Before that, we had to give him a chinese name. That was a saga for his chinese name, which I shall not elaborate. As hubby is a hainanese, it is a tradition for the sons to follow a fixed middle name from the ancestor book. We were not very keen as the middle name was "氣". How the h**l are we going to name our son with such weird middle name!? But my father-in-law (FIL) insisted :| FIL came out with some names for us, I like NONE of them and decided we should let the fengshui master decides for us. And so through a friend's contact, we engaged a taiwanese fengshui master. He gave us a few options (睿，榮...) based on the number of strokes. We were quite happy with the name 睿 (pronounced as rui), it means smart, intelligent. I was quite surprised that the older generation had no clue about this word, while the new generation are naming their children with this word. After the saga, we insisted on this character, and Zaczac's official chinese name is 符氣睿.

I was counting down to the end of my confinement, and before I know it, its Zaczac's one month celebration! We celebrated his baby shower (full month) at Orchid Country Club on 9 August 2009. It was a lunch reception for 80 guests. Here's a picture of Zaczac with his great-grandfather (tai-gong). I love this picture, we have the oldest in the family cuddling the youngest in the family... how amazing! Read on for the progress in the second month...