The Story of Jenson's Birth

On 13 Apr 2010 (Tue), on her usual round (33rd week of pregnancy) to visit her obsterician & gynaecologist, Dr Tan Yew Ghee at Raffles Hospital, Jenny is diagnosed to have pre-eclampsia (pregnancy-induced hypertension) with BP reading of around 190/110. She is immediately warded for close follow-up and monitoring.

For the next few days, her BP remained high and Dr Tan Yew Ghee has planned to go for caesarean section delivery the following monday on 19 Apr 2010. He explained that the baby is in a breech position and a natural vaginal delivery would put the baby's or mother's life or health at risk.

However, in the early morning of 18 Apr 2010 at about 3.30am, I received a call from Jenny that she was experiencing some pain and there was some discharge from her vaginal. Over the phone, she told me that they had wheeled her to the delivery ward and had activated her obsterician. I rushed down to Raffles Hospital and on the way up, I bumped into Dr Tan Yew Ghee in the lift at about 4.30am who appeared to have been woken up from his sleep as well. His hair was a little messy and he was in his sandals. He greeted me and I apologised for having to trouble him at this early hour. He told me that the baby heartbeat went down momentarily earlier on but was back to normal again. After assessing Jenny's condition in the ward, he advised us to go for an emergency C-section to deliver the baby as soon as possible. We signed the paper to go ahead.

Jenny was wheeled down into the operating theatre at about 5.15am on level 7. I waited outside at the waiting lounge. At about 5.50am, I was greeted by Dr Tan Mein Chuen, a pediatrician who congratulated me that both mummy and baby were well. I accompanied him and the nurse who wheeled the baby to the neonatal centre on level 8. Dr Tan M.C. told me that as the baby is premature, at 34th week he is still very small and need close monitoring. On the way up, the nurse told me that the baby was delivered at 5.41am. Inside the neonatal intensive care unit, the measurement of the baby was done before he was put into the incubator. Baby Jenson weighs only 1.75kg at birth, 39cm in length and head circumference of 30cm.

I went back down to level 7 to wait for Jenny. At about 6.15am, Dr Tan Yew Ghee came out and greeted me. He told me everything went well and the moment the baby was out, Jenny's blood pressure dropped to normal range. I was relieved and he shook my hands before we parted. Dr Tan told me that he would be back later in the day to see us again. A while later, Jenny was wheeled out and I showed her our baby first photo (left) which I took earlier on in the ICU. She was still weak from the anaesthetic but was happy to learn that our baby is well as we wheeled her back to ward 825 on level 8. She slept well that morning on 18 Apr 2010.

I am glad God has once again given me this opportunity to experience the anxiety in bringing my little baby boy, Jenson into this world. Thank you all, who have in one way or another, helped us bring this joy to our family again.:)

-->The Story of Janice's Birth