5 years. Unbelievable.

In honor of Teague's birthday, I'm sharing a repost from 18 Feb 2008, a year after we brought Teague home from the hospital. This was the inaugural post of my Three Little Baers blog.




A little over a year ago today, we were headed home from the hospital in Seoul with our little monkey. We waited for what seemed like hours for the discharge papers, we watched the nurse inspect our carseat and remove the baby lo-jack anti-theft device, we took the obligatory "leaving the hospital" photo (several times, because the elevator door kept closing on Sean) and got ready for the drive home.


Normally, this involves ridiculous amounts of traffic, but lucky for us, it was an important Korean holiday, so we drove in the favored lane, the super fast bus lane. We later learned that we had a lovely souvenir of our first commute home, a photo traffic ticket. Apparently driving in the bus lane isn't allowed during holidays. We would have known this had we read the obnoxious blinking overhead sign in Hangul. My conversational Korean classes at the community center really paid off.


A not-so-abbreviated version of the birth story is this; I went in for a routine visit on Valentine's Day, and the u/s showed that Teague hadn't gained significant weight. I was diagnosed with IUGR, due to the single umbilical artery issue that had been discovered at 30 weeks. The doc said something about induction, and because I was only 36w5d, I asked, "Today?" in full panic mode.  Reassuringly, she said, "No no no, not today" and as I sighed in relief, she then said, "tomorrow."  Really?


 I was still in "my baby won't be here for another 3 weeks" mode, and in my mind, I was thinking, "I have to be at work tomorrow!" Yeah, right. So we drove home from Seoul, called the family, called work, packed my bag and went to bed. We drove back to Seoul the following morning for a 6 am showtime. Upon arrival, I was admitted and then was told that there was a sudden rush of babies being born, so I'd have to wait until the afternoon. The afternoon was pushed to the evening, and then around 7 they decided that I could finally eat, because  I was starting to eat hospital gowns they would wait until the morning to induce.



That morning they started the pitocin. It was slow going until she broke my water. My contraction monitor was linked to the monitors of the other women delivering. This is the worst delivery room invention ever. I watched at the top of the screen as their contractions changed and one after the other, they delivered. Every single women delivered except me. I felt like we were at the horse races, and I was on my way to the glue factory.


Evening came. The anesthesiologist was finally out of emergency surgery and stopped by for a lovely Epidural visit. Two hours later, Sean was sleeping and I was watching Survivor on AFN, when I felt the need to push. I called the nurse, she got Dr. Ellis and it was "go" time. I pushed 4 times and he was here. He was just over 5 lbs and was 19 inches long. A perfect little peanut.

Sean got to see him right away and was over the moon. I think he even said, "Why didn't we do this sooner?" I, on the other hand, began vomiting immediately, which makes for some great post-birth kodak moments. What I couldn't believe was how the room went from a flurry of activity, with nurses, the doctor and bright lights to complete quiet in the span of a few minutes. It was like stepping off of a carnival ride and walking into a library. We roomed with Teague and celebrated Korean New Year with my first post-Teague meal, which, in the history of everdom is the tastiest meal I have ever eaten. The entire experience was as good as a delivery could be. 

How was that 5 years ago?

Happy Birthday to my lovebug. Love you to the moon and all the way back.