Birth two

As I wrote about the first experience I thought I might as complete it and write one for the birth of our second child, Kajerik. Last time a fair bit of the focus was on child birth as well as a large chunk around the topic of being in Japan. But the Japan part did not differ much, so it is not a very interesting story in that aspect.

I was at work on Thursday the 8th of Feb, having returned from lunch a little earlier. I get a call from Ushka at 15:00, which in itself is unusual enough to tell me something was up. Since ordinarily we just chat on IRC, or send phone messages, and since I was at work, nobody from work would call me. Ushka said her water was broken, but nothing else was going on. She gave a definite "you should come home" this time so there was no decision there. I handed off my current/only important task to Erin (sorry), popped downstairs to take out some cash (see? No panic this time around!) and got in a Taxi.

Unfortunately the driver picked to go through Shibuya, a route I dislike. It may be technically a shorter distance, but it takes longer (and cost more!) than going the Yamate-dori way. I sent an email off to the grand parents, and coordinated things with Ushka. She had already called Emily and the Hoikuen so they were prepared. Ironically, by the time I got home, I could have cycled faster, but oh well.

I went up to the apartment and helped with the bags. Ushka was quite calm too, and we caught the first Taxi to the hospital. Quite a relaxing time this time, no contractions though. We naively discussed the possibility that I might be home again by 22:00 or so. (Since Lokien's labour took about 5 hours). Hah!

After all that, we arrived at Seibo Hospital at 16:00 or so, and checked in. When we got there it was quite empty, most rooms available, and only one other person in labour. Still no real contractions, they came and went. Some around 4 minutes apart, sometimes 7 minutes. They asked if we wanted a private room, or shared, for the labour part (different to the after recovery, where Ushka wanted shared room or it would be too lonely.) We picked private since everything was available. (Shared would also be private for a short time too). It was the same room that we had with Lokien, so it all came screaming back then.

They checked the dialation, it was at 4cm. (It was 2cm when we had the Doctor's appointment on the earlier Tuesday.) Ushka got hooked up to the monitoring contraption. The baby's heartbeat was excellent, and contractions still not so regular. We did a lot of walking around the corridors, as you do. Time went forward slowly, eventually we started connecting to the Internet to check mails, and chat. Called Emily to check if there were any problems picking up Lokien, but it sounded like they had a good time. Emily even sent some pictures of Lokien and Lily which was nice to see.

We asked for another dilation check at about 22:00 and unfortunately it was still at 4cm. We tried to sleep a little, but when they saw I would rather be on the floor than to sleep in a chair, they recommended the shared room as I could get a little bit of tatami to sleep on myself. So that was nice. We slept from about 00:00 to about 03:00 or so, but other woman arrived. We could hear the door bell, then they came in. Sleeping to the sound of women having contractions, and "itaiii", followed by baby screams sure is...different..