They Might Be Curly Giants!

Introducing Maya Nadirah, born 13th November 2007 at 6.24am, weighing 3.195kg.

The day, 12 November, started as any other. We both went to work, slugged through the day, got off work, picked the kids up and went home. Except that it wasn’t an ordinary day because during dinner at the MIL’s place, she revealed that she was starting to feel contractions. It hadn’t started to get intense, and we didn’t bother timing them, but Trin knew that it was the start of something big. She didn’t feel right, so she went to bed early, while I put on my organizational hat and got down to the business of making sure all the essentials are packed - camera, SD card, spare batteries, phone, PDA, keys, cigarettes, lighter, and so on. Not to mention other minor stuff such as identity card and pre-admission forms.

Being the owl that I am, I was still up late till about 3am before deciding to call it a day and retire to my place of slumber for the past few weeks, ie. the sofa (more on that in another post). When I went to bed, I was actually hoping that Maya would be born the next morning so that I don’t have to go to work. Or so I thought.

At 5am, I was awakened by Trin, who informed me that the contractions were now closer together (roughly four minutes apart). As tradition would have it, I asked her the same question I did when Ajab and Ayeed were born - “Are you sure?”. After a short deliberation, we decided to make the call to the delivery suite where the nurse advised us to get our asses down to the hospital as soon as possible.

I was in my commanding officer / general / head coach / cheerleader mode and roused the boys from their sleep after Trin and I got ourselves ready for the road. Ajab’s protests and Ayeed’s excited but sleeping babbling were ignored for the moment as we concentrated on the task at hand - getting the boys to the MIL’s place so that we can make our way to the hospital and have another baby.

It was deja vu for us as we sped down the Central Expressway on the way to the hospital. In this aspect we have been blessed in having all three of our kids born in the early morning or pre-dawn hours where the traffic was at its lightest and worries about the infamous CTE jam and all that’s associated with it (hello bloody expensive ERP!) were non-existent. Trin only had to worry about breathing and I only had to worry about whether the cab will make it there on time. As in the case with Ayeed’s time, the contractions suddenly got worse in the cab and I could see Trin struggling to keep it together.

We made it to the A&E at about 6.05am and Trin was immediately wheeled up to the delivery suite where a nurse prepped her for the imminent delivery of our daughter. The nurse asked whether Trin had any urge to push, and she replied in the negative. That negative turned quickly into one giant positive because barely five minutes later, she was having an almighty urge to deliver the baby RIGHT NOW and there simply wasn’t enough time for an epidural. With the gas mask clamped firmly on her face, and Trin screaming in pain, it was time to go, even though her gynae was nowhere in sight, despite being paged for repeatedly by the nurses.

Events this morning thundered by so fast, you’d probably have to review it in slow-motion. I barely had time to breathe, let alone sit, when suddenly, with a bone-crushing squeeze of my hand and a muffled scream from Trin …. Maya was born.

It was surreal. It happened so fast. We thought Ayeed’s delivery was quick but that pales in comparison to what we experienced this morning. Maya was cleaned up and then …. Trin’s gynae came stumbling into the delivery suite, looking disheveled like as though she just woke up from her sleep. She proceeded to extract the placenta, did the necessary stitching and congratulated us on a successful delivery. She also told us that her professional fees would be waved because, well, she missed the big event! Trin practically gave birth to Maya by herself.

We heeded the ominous sign pasted on a nearby door and after Maya’s first bath, mother and daughter finally began their bonding as Maya had her first ‘meal’. She latched on with no problems and proceeded to do what babies do best - drink. And she’s quite a heavy drinker too, just like Ayeed. And what was I, the daddy, doing during this time (besides taking photos)? I had breakfast, went for numerous smokes and generally feeling bored, sleepy and hungry. After the formalities have been completed it was finally time to go up to our room in the maternity ward. They assigned Trin and Maya to the same room that Ayeed was in when he was born!

We received a quite a few visitors from both Trin’s and my side of the family as well as our blogging buddies, Yati, Ramli and Fadelinah, who came with Ooyah. Thanks for taking the time after work to come and visit us and Maya, guys!

So there you have it. In a nutshell. The story of the day Maya Nadirah, formerly known as B3, was born. In case you didn’t know, her name translates to ‘rare princess’. A princess indeed! And that do the two princes think about her? Well, Ajab managed to kiss / smell his sister a few times (and poke her cheek a few times too), while Ayeed was more interested in the OTO massage chair that was in the day room, to which he ran barefoot from one end of the ward to the other to happily climb up and down of.