An End and A New Beginning

Folks! I'm proud to announce that, this 'This Little Piggy...' site is coming to an end. After all, just like it was mentioned in the introduction above, this blog is supposed to be a journal of our 40-week pregnancy journey. It is only appropriate that I stick to the original intent, and limit our content to focus on this pregnancy only.

In the next few days/weeks, there will be significantly fewer posts, to wind down the activities on this blog. I do plan to write a post to talk about our experience with our Doctor. This is because I am aware that there were a lot of visitors to this blog that were referred by Google Search, when the search was on Dr. Albert Chen. It seems to me that there are a lot of Parents-to-be who are doing research on Dr. Chen, and want to find out more about him. So this will be on my agenda for this blog.

Otherwise, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce our Readers to this Little Piggy's new site:

www.AddisonBChan.com

Yes, Addison is having his own site! Those who would like to know more about Addison can now follow him at his own site! I hope see you all there, and so does Addison! And for those who have subscribed to This Little Piggy's automatic email update, please be aware that your subscription do NOT transfer to Addison's site. If you want to continue receive email notification on new content from Addison's site, please submit your email address AGAIN, directly from Addison's site.

Last but not least, this "This Little Piggy" site will remain available online, should anyone wants to reference our experience.

Once again, thank you very much for accompanying us throughout this exciting journey! I look forward to seeing you there at AddisonBChan.com!

More Pictures... and a Thought!

My thought is... I'm beginning to wonder if Addison operates on Hong Kong's Time Zone. I had 2 hours of sleep last night. Although I did catch some rest this afternoon. Midnight is approaching as I'm typing this post. I wonder how fussy is he going to be tonight.

Well Rested Today!

Amy and I both had 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night! This is totally something to get excited over! I mean FOUR hours straight! No crying, no hiccups, no diaper change, no feeding! That's like... Christmas comes early in November this year! I totally feel like I do not deserve this... NOT! To pass on this reward onto our loyal Readers, here are a few more videos...

This video below was taken while still at the hospital. In fact, this was shortly after birth...

This video below was taken on Home Coming day. If you turn up the volume a bit, you can even hear Addison farted at approximately the 50 seconds mark...

Second Round of Pictures, and Video Too!

Folks,

I'm too tired to type an detail update to what had happened in the past 7 days! But here's a quick rundown...

Today is Addison's 1 Week Birthday! Instead of celebrating Addison's 1 week milestone, I think it should be Amy and Myself who are congratulating each other for surviving this first 7 days!

Amy's wound was bleeding heavily at 3am last night! I had to wake up the doctor in the middle of the night to find out what to do. We went back to his office today for follow-up procedures. Everything is good, and the wound is healing perfectly. But it was quite a terrifying episode last night.

Addison also went to his first doctor's visit today! Despite losing 1 pound when measured on the hospital check-out date, Addison has gained back some weight today. He's now at 7lb 2oz. The Doctor also said there is still some Jaundice on Addison, but nothing to be worried about.

Anyway, it's 3am now, and I just want to get these pictures up so that I can stop receiving hate mails, and threatening phone calls, and get some sleep before Addison screams murder again!

Here are some more pictures from the hospital...

These pictures below were taken on the day we check-out of the hospital. It's Home Coming Day!




Some more pictures that we took in the past few days... while Amy and I are not asleep!




And here it is... pictures of Addison at exactly 1 week old!




And here is a clip that shows the Nurse checking Addison shortly after birth, and measuring his height and weight...

Little Piggy's First Round of Pictures

Click below to begin slide show...

There's a good chance that we'll get discharged from the hospital tomorrow.

Otherwise, everything is good so far.

Only if...

Okay, okay, okay!!! I'll post some pictures here only if my Boy can stop shitting 3 times a day... only if the nurses stop finding stupid reasons to enter our room to check ME out (hoping that I happen to be changing clothes or something! Come on, I knew that those blood tests and hearing tests for the Baby were all lame excuses!), or only if my cell phone stop ringing! (Yes, the Press has been calling!)

Do you people have any idea what new-born's shit looks like? Just imagine Creamy Peanut Butter in Black... all over a Baby's butt, while the Baby's legs keep kicking and pulling, to get more 'peanut butter' on the heel so that the rest of blankets and clothes get more 'peanut butter'! (By the way, the coloring is normal!)

Anyway, there's a chance that Amy will discharge from the hospital tomorrow. I'll let you know with more details.

And the Baby Boy's Name is...

Okay, the hospital is not supposed to release the name of my Baby Boy to the media! I should have known that I cannot trust the hospital personnel to save guard my boy's name from the news agencies. Don't they understand that this is a matter of personal safety? After all, I already took numerous pictures with those nurses, with their hands all over my body! (One of them even tried to kiss me in front of my wife!) I hope whichever nurse who sold my baby's name to the media did get some good money for getting herself fired!

Here is what one of the many Evening News are reporting. Thanks to my buddy, Stevie... G, who captured this...

I apologize to those who had to find out my son's name via the TV. But 'yes', Amy and I have decided to name our son:

Addison Brendan Chan

The Chinese name of Addison has yet to be determined.

Stay tuned!

It's a Boy!

Both Mom and Baby are healthy!

This is what the media is reporting so far:

The Los Angeles Times...


Our Local Gas Station...

The Family Entertainment Industry...


The Wall Street Journal...
More pictures and details to follow. Stay tuned!

Due Date +4 - We're in Labor!!!!

Amy's water broke! We're in the hospital since noon today. It's 8:00pm now, and Amy is injected with Pitocin at 48 ml per hour to speed up the contractions.

When we were at Dr. Chen's office this morning, Amy's cervix was dilated at 2cm. Dr. Chen told us that we were not progressing, and scheduled us to for a NST for tomorrow at 2:30pm, and an induction on Wednesday at 8pm. We left the doctor's office thinking... "Oh my God! Dr. Chen is going to do an induction get this Little Piggy out!"

We usually go hunt for food after our usual Doctor's visit, and this morning was just the same. We decided to go to a restaurant that we haven't been to a long time, called Mistro, at Palos Verdes. We got lost in the beginning and we later found the restaurant, all because of my good looks! Anyway, as soon as Amy got off the car, she noticed that something is leaking out of her body. We were wondering if it was the gel that the Doctor used earlier during the pelvic exam. So we decided to head to the reataurant and Amy would do some investigation at the Ladies room. When Amy returned, she told me that she believes it's really the 'water', and not the 'gel.' So we decided to skip the brunch, and head straight to the hospital.

We checked in to the hospital and it didn't take long for the nurse to confirmed that the membrane was indeed broken and the amniotic fluid is leaking! So the nurse continued with the 'real' check-in process... meaning that there were tons of paper work to sign. Amy basically signed away her life! The nurse also started an IV... along with an IV, there's also some 'happy juice' called Pitocin. Basically, it's some kind of hormone that make the contractions more frequent. It started off at 8ml per hour dosage. When I started typing this post at 8pm, it was already at 48ml per hour. Right now, it is at 54ml, and the nurse is increasing the dosage like every half an hour. The goal is to get some strong and frequent contractions!

Back track about 2 hours or so, at around 7pm, Amy also started an epideral. Before the epideral, the pain from contractions was getting stronger and stronger. It got to a point that Amy was squeezing my fingers so tight that she almost broke my fingers that are most used for playing PS2! Then, after we consulted with the nurse, we have decided to start an epideral. It is also a reason why the nurse can increase the dosage of the pitosin so aggressively, now that Amy is under pain management.

It coming close to 10pm now, and the last check on the cervix was still at 4cm. I think it's going to be a long long night. Below are some pictures that I took...


This is the Pitocin...

This is the machine that works the dosage into Amy's IV. When took this picture, the dosage was still at 18ml per hour. The latest check on this machine is 60ml per hour.

This is a picture of Amy earlier today, before the contractions were strong and painful.

The latest update from the nurse is that it is now at 5cm & 90% effaced.

Stay tuned!

Due Date +3 - Evening Update

After Dim Sum this afternoon, Amy and I continued our daily walk!  Today, we decided to go to Old Town Pasadena.  We walked up and down Colorado Blvd. and then we had afternoon tea at Mi Piace Restaurant.  Unfortunately, we didn't bring our camera with us today.  Otherwise, we would have taken a few shots of the Double Chocolate Cheesecake and the Tiramisu that we had today!  They are both delicious! 

After our afternoon tea, we continued to walk the remaining half of Old Pas. At almost 5pm, we have decided to call-it a day!  But we still managed to swing by the Chinese Super Market for some groceries before heading home.  Therefore, I think we did enough walking for today!

As for the 'Contraction Department', Amy has been having contractions throughout the day.  Again, as mentioned, they are very irregular in intervals.  Some were as close as 5 minutes, and some were hours apart.

We have our weekly Doctor visit tomorrow.  Right now, Amy is worried that the Doctor might induce the labor on her, which she has heard that it is a very painful procedure.  But this is all speculation.  We'll find out more tomorrow.  Doctor's appointment is at 10am.

My parting comment for today is... if we continue to walk around Los Angeles on this daily basis, this blog can easily be turned into a Los Angeles travel guide for visitors!

Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Due Date + 3 - Morning Update

There were some contractions last night, all night, but the pattern was very irregular. We had a few as close as 10 minutes apart, while some are hours apart.

We are heading out to Dim Sum with Piggy's Grandma and Great Grandma. Maybe some more walking later today. I'll post another update later this evening.

Thanks for reading! For those who are in the U.S., have a wonderful Sunday afternoon!

Due Date + 2 - Evening Update

We didn't go to the mall, nor the beach today. To get our share of walking, all we did was to walk around our gated complex. We did a couple laps; although not as many 'miles' as yesterday's walk, it was still a bit of walking.

Throughout the day, Amy has been feeling contractions with interval as little as 10 minutes apart. But sometimes they were as much as an hour apart. Although within the past hour, she had at least 5 contractions already as I'm typing this post.

It's almost 11pm now, and I hope that we can have a good night sleep before the contraction frequency gets higher/closer. "5 minutes apart, for an hour" is what we were told to go to the hospital. Otherwise... just stay home!

That's all the update I have for now. Stay tuned!

Due Date + 2 - Morning Update

• 2 Contractions reported from last night
• Another 2 more from all of this morning
• There was just another 1 reported at 2:30pm. Let's see when will the next one be!
• Meanwhile, I'm trying to come up with places where I can take Amy for a walk

More update later this evening.

Due Date + 1

We have officially past the Due Date! Not a big deal, of course. After all, most books and articles that I've read all claim that statistics have shown the first baby is usually a bit late. However, did I mention to our Readers that my personal preferred birth date is November 3? The reason is because Amy's birth date is January 13. So 113 and 113... got it!? Although Blackburn is hosting Liverpool tomorrow morning, I certainly don't mind missing the game should the Piggy decides to check-in to the real world tomorrow.

So what can I do to get the Piggy out? All I could think of is what the Doctor prescribed... Walking! Yeah, we did some walking yesterday already, but we still have to do some more! After all, Gloria told me that after she did a mile-long walk when she was pregnant, her water broke that night! So where else can we go for more walking? We have already nailed all the big malls in L.A. I suggested Fry's but it was quickly shot down. We have always like beaches, so let's go to the beach! Specifically, Redondo Beach!

Since the suitcase and my camera bag are still in the trunk of my car, I took some pictures of our outing today. (Click below to begin Slideshow.)

We also took some videos!

This one below was taken as we walked along the boardwalk. It's a sail boat with halloween decorations still on it.




Then, after we had our afternoon snack, I took this video while waiting for Amy when she was in the ladies room. You know, it's not that easy to work for the Discovery Channel shooting animals!




Then, I took this video to show our Readers how much walking we did today! And this is not even half way!




This one below was taken at the half way point. We then turned around and walked back from here.




All in all, we did quite a bit of walking today. I did some measurement from Google Earth, and it looks like we had at least more than 1 mile of walking today!

Frustratingly, as I'm typing this post, at 9:50pm, there is not even one contraction!

P.S. That Count-down thing on the side-bar does not even work once the Due Date is past! What a stupid design! Don't be surprised if I take it down!

Hospital Visit #3; Piggy's Final Photo Shoot Before Birth?

Throughout last night and this morning, Amy has been experiencing contractions once every 5-6 hours. And every contraction would yield some light brown color discharge. So when Amy woke up this morning, we decided to give Dr. Chen a call.

We called the office and told the Nurse what was going on. The nurse immediately told us that it is normal... to calm us down. Then the nurse said she will still tell Dr. Chen the situation and see what he has to say.

About 10 minutes later, Dr. Chen himself called me back. He asked if the Baby has been kicking a lot, and the answer from Amy was: 'Not really.' Then Dr. Chen told us to check-in to the hospital to have the baby checked-up. "It's better to be safe, than sorry!", he said.

So we get changed, and then pretty much put everything that we have packed so far, into the car. Although we didn't think that it's time to give birth, we treated it like it was anyway.

We arrived at the hospital and there were a lot more people there, compare to our last 2 'midnight' visits. It was so crowded that we had to stay at the Recovery Room (instead of the nice, private, and cozy delivery room.) It was that bad. My only complain is our neightbor's baby-heartbeat monitor was turned up so loud that you could barely hear the Mom's conversation... (Trust me, that lady did not shut up throughout our short stay! I seriously think that she did talk through her contraction pain, as well as delivery had she had one!)

Anyway, back to Amy! After we got checked-in, I helped Amy to get changed into the hospital gown. The nurse then hooked her up with all those monitors. Since our reason for visit was the lack for fetal movement, the Nurse gave Amy a handheld button, and told her to press the button whenever she feels Piggy's kicking. A Blood Pressure belt also got tied around Amy's arm. That thing measures Amy's blood pressure, automatically, at some pre-defined interval. We learned that because the belt was discomforting, and I took it off Amy's arm, after the nurse left. Then some moments later, we heard this strange noise coming from the machine, and we noticed that 'that belt' was all blown up! I quickly put it back onto Amy's arm!

We were left alone for a while, and as we were waiting, Little Piggy was kicking vigorously again! A contraction (or two?) was also felt while we were waiting. About 45 minutes later, the nurse came back for the pelvic exam. After the exam, the Nurse told us that Amy is 1 cm dilated, and 75% effaced. Then the Nurse told us that she is gonig to report these numbers to Dr. Chen to see what he wants to do next.

Holy crap! All these walking, mini-contractions, and ice-cream, and we are still only at 1cm!!? Had Chris know this, he wouldn't even bother to call every hour to find out if he was going to win the jackpot! Oh, and to those remaining 16 Losers Contestants, this is like a slap in their face from my Little Piggy! Even I felt stupid for worrying so much that I was going to have a Halloween child!

We were devastated! Because we now know that we will have plenty more walking to do. Even some bunny-jump maybe?

Anyway, the Nurse came back a bit later and told us that Dr. Chen has ordered an AFI (Amniotic Fluid Index) scan. She sent us to the 1st floor and we didn't have to wait long before we were called in for the scan. The nurse who ran the scan was a very nice person. She took a long time showing us different angles of the Little Piggy! We even caught Piggy's arm moving a few times! And of course, she printed out 2 shots of Piggy's scan for us, as souvenir! She also printed our AFI report card and told us that we scored a 10, and anything above 5 is good.

We took the report card back to the Labor and Delivery Dept., and waited by our assigned bed. The Nurse came back shortly after, looked at the report, and told us that we are good to go! She told us that the brownish discharge is normal, as long as it is not bright red in color, and if it is not a lot. We checked out of the hospital at 4pm... and guess where we went? WALK!

Yeah, we went walking at various places. I don't want to bore you with all those details. But we didn't get home until 7pm. And all these walking didn't even yield a single contraction!

Enough of us! Let's see some pictures!

From this image below, it looks like Piggy has a big forehead! But the Doctor has measure the skull many many times, and everything was normal. I guess he must have a large brain!



Just in case you can't tell which is what from the image above, I have added some pointers for you. If you click on the image, it will enlarge.



Here's another image from a different angle.

I rotated the picture hoping that it will be easier for you to see the Piggy's face!

I don't know Man! I don't know where this Piggy got that nose from!

Mission Accomplished! See ya, Halloween!

It's 11:30pm on a Halloween night! I've made it! We've made it! The Little Piggy has made it! Chris has made it too! I am confident to say that... we have a winner! Our Little Piggy is going to be born on or after November 1, 2007! And the Little Piggy's first best friend turns out to be his/her own Uncle Chris! You guys have no idea how many times Chris has called me today. And every time when I fail to pick up the cell phone, he would immediately call my house.

Chris: "Why didn't you pick up the phone? I IM-ed you and didn't respond! All I could think of is that you guys are heading to the hospital! You need to pick up your phone when I call!"

Me: "You know what? If you don't stop bugging me, I'm NOT going to collect all the money for you!"

Anyway, congratulations to my brother! Your winnings will pay-out to you over 20 annual payments!

Now, back to the person of the moment... my Wife! According to her, she experienced a few obvious contractions today. 2 of those happened between 1pm and 2pm. The third one came at around 8pm. And there was another one that struck at 10:07pm. I don't know what this means. All I can say is... the Little Piggy is on his/her way! I just don't know when!

Last but not least, I was looking for a picture of Chris and I to post on this blog, just to commemorate the winner of the Guess the Due Date Contest. But I came across a picture that is even better!

There is one person who didn't participate this Due Date Contest. But I'm sure that if he is around, he would be the first to place his bet, and the first to call everyday to find out how Amy is doing. I'm also sure that he will be the first to hold this Little Piggy in his arm, and to give this Piggy a big kiss. That person is Piggy's Grandfather, my Dad! I wish that he would be around to share this joyful moment with the family. I wish that he would be around to see his first Grandchild. I wish that he would be around, just to laugh at me while watching me changing Piggy's diapers! Or to be around trying to convince Piggy that Manchester United is the team to support, and not Liverpool. I wish that he could be around, so that I can introduce his Grandchild to him.

But I have faith that he will be there to witness every moment of it! I know he will be around. (Well, maybe not when the Piggy is crying!)

Dear Dad, if you happen to be reading this post from far far away, I want you to know that you will a Grandfather very very soon! Congratulations!