Yumni's Story - The Beginning

Yumni's Story - The Beginning

I am going back in time to the moment before Yumni came to this world. Somewhere 60 minutes before she first gasped her free oxygen all by herself out of utero. This will be the story of Yumni's birth.

At around 3am Lena woke me up complaining of pain "somewhere at the stomach". Was it "it", I asked, "it" of cos referring to the birth. It was actually the exact date or EDD, but we never really expected the child to be so obedient and come out on the exact date. She couldn't be sure so I suggested we just go and see the doctor. I also asked her if it was just, you know, "lausai" or sumthin like that (me being very sleepy and secretly wishing the baby would come out exactly after I bathed, shaved and have breakfast). She dared not try to pass motion as she might actually push the baby out into the toilet bowl by mistake!. We couldn't really tell how dilated she was. In the end it was decided that she would take a cab to SGH while I stay at home and look after Mikail & Luqman, who were then blissfully asleep.

And so she did.

I crawled back to bed beside Mikail and whispered in his ears about what had happened, not really expecting him to answer. And I fell asleep clutching my handphone, ready to spring into action if need be.

At 3.35 am she called saying that she was in the labor Ward, 2cm dilated, and would most probably give birth within the next hour or so. I did a quick wash up, get the car and drove to SGH not in much of a hurry as I knew that I could reach there within 20 minutes or so.

At around 4.10 am I reached SGH Labor Ward and found her alone, smiling and bloodied waist down. I missed the birth!!! I never missed a single seconds of Mikail and Luqman's passage into this world, but I missed my daughter’s coming-to-the-world journey! Was quite disappointed but didn’t see the point in dwelling over that. Held her hands and was soon inundated with her updates of the past grueling 20 minutes. I was told that the birth (from dilation to pushing out the baby) was very fast and much more painful as she wasn’t allowed to get Epidural (the nurse said it was too late). I couldn’t possibly say anything much than smiling and holding her hands tight. And wondering silently, where the heck is my baby?

It was quite a while before Yumni joined us again in the room, washed, clean and looking very, very peaceful. I am not a skilled wordsmith, so I can only decribe how it was in plain, simple, mostly unfeeling words. But beleive me, it was truly a moment of beauty.