This afternoon Jude Maximus Tiah aka Fighter was born. At 31 weeks, he’s a tiny baby, premature and only weighing 1.13 KG. To give you an idea of how small Fighter is right now, here’s a picture of the incubator he is in.

He’s so small that they had to put him in an intensive care unit where a specialist can monitor him to make sure he grows well. We’re not out of the woods yet because premature babies could run into problems but we’re hoping Fighter will be healthy. So far the Doctor says Fighter is doing okay.

Shorty is still in the hospital recovering from the surgery and the nurses are trying to keep her blood pressure down. I think I will write more about my experience in the Operating Theater some time in the future. Not tonight though… because I’m feeling really mentally exhausted. It’s been a long but fulfilling day. I woke up this morning not knowing that my son will be born today but now that he’s here, I feel relieved. I just pray he grows to be a healthy baby.

Thank you all for all your prayers and well wishes. Thank you God for protecting Shorty and Fighter.

Daddy and Mommy loves you Fighter.

Dear Fighter,

Today’s date will be a date I will remember for the rest of my life. It will be the date of your birthday. You see I woke up this morning to news of your Mom. The Doctor found that her blood pressure and pulse have gone out of control and that she has water in her lungs, making it hard for her to breathe.

So the Doctor has decided that she has to deliver you in a few hours time. I sit now by your mom’s bedside typing this to you on my laptop. Your mom is sleeping on the bed, with tubes sprawling across her from both her hands and machines plugged into her to monitor both your vitals and hers.

According to a monitor right next to your Mom, your heart is beating away healthily. I pray that means you are ready. Your mom has done all she can in the past 3 weeks, now it’s your turn to fight on. Don’t be scared. Our hearts will be with you throughout your fight. Remember your parents love you.

I can’t wait to see you Fighter.

Shorty’s energy in the past 24 hours has seriously deteriorated. If you had the wonderful experience to know Shorty in real life, she’s this really bubbly girl that laughs every 3 minutes either at jokes someone else makes or jokes she makes herself. The Shorty today is nothing like that. She’s suffering from a bad headache and blurry vision from the progressing blood pressure. She can’t talk without taking breaths between every few words. I did manage to get her to laugh for a few seconds at my Phil Dunphy impression but that didn’t last more than a moment.

The Doctor has responded by once again increasing her dosage to keep the blood pressure down but she is already at almost the highest dosage that can be given.

She wanted to go for our routine walk around the ward today but while she normally manages 2-3 small rounds, today she only managed one. I put her back into bed, drew the curtains and stroked her head while she slowly fell asleep. She likes that.

Before she slept she whispered something that I didn’t hear the first time. Then I leaned in and asked her what she said, with a very soft voice I heard it “I wish you could sleep here with me”. “You mean on the couch here? I can”. But that’s not what she meant. “I mean sleep right here with me on the same bed”. Then I remembered… it has been more than two weeks since we have had the luxury of sleeping on the same bed as husband and wife. I always used to say how she would always just face away from me and hug a bolster on the side anyway so she wouldn’t even realize that I’m there. But I realize now it’s more than that. I miss listening to the sound of her soft breaths and just being able to wake up in the middle of the night and look to my left to see her right there.

Then as I sat there next to her as she slept, still stroking her head with my right hand I started to reminisce happier times. Like the months we spent in California last year and all the simple things like just talking to her while I was driving the car or riding a bike.

The funny stories she would tell me, the witty jokes and how she used to bounce around like a bobble head whenever she laughs. I realize how much joy Shorty brings me everyday.

It’s painful watching her deteriorate like that. I wish I could trade places with her now. That I was the one suffering from preeclampsia for Fighter but I know all I can do is be that rock to her. If this experience has taught me one thing, its that I know I married the right woman. Before she dosed off, Shorty whispered
“I can’t wait to see Fighter. To bring him home”.

I can’t wait for Fighter too… but I also can’t wait to have my Shorty back at her normal self again.

Hi Guys,

I just want to say thank you guys for all the great supportive comments and prayed you have left us. I’m still in the hospital with Shorty and I write this. We had a bit of a scare on Monday which you can read about here on Shorty’s blog, but now Shorty has stabilized a little. We’re still on our toes because the Doctor told us it’s very hard to predict what will happen next. Shorty and Fighter are still classified as a high risk pregnancy so she’s going to be here in the hospital likely till Fighter is delivered.

In the mean time the Doctor has told us to restrict visitors because she doesn’t want Shorty to get overexcited all the time, and have asked Shorty to sleep more.

Will update again soon. Thank you for the wonderful support.

Dear Fighter,

By the time you’re old enough to read this, you’ll know that your name isn’t really “Fighter”. You now go by a different name with the initials J M Tiah. Fighter is a nickname your mother and I gave you ever since she discovered she was pregnant with you. You see mom has a medical condition called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I’ll let you read up about it on your own but in short it’s the most common reason for infertility in a woman and even once a woman gets pregnant, there is a 45% chance that a woman with PCOS has a miscarriage. That’s 3 times higher than a regular pregnancy.

We called you Fighter, because we believed that you will go against all odds and make it through to be a healthy baby. That you will fight for your life as hard as your Dad and Mom fought for yours… because you are a Fighter.

As I write this, the date is the 4th of August 2013. I am at your mother’s bedside in the hospital. She has been here for 10 days and is expected to be here for the next few weeks. You see 10 days ago when your mother came for a regular checkup on you, the Doctor found out that she had preeclampsia. It’s a medical condition where the placenta is a little faulty and so the mother’s body works harder to pump more blood to the baby. As a result of that, the mother’s blood pressure goes up and if that goes out of control, your mother could get a stroke, lose her eyesight or have some other serious consequences.

The only cure for preeclampsia is to deliver the baby which is why it isn’t too bad a condition if the mother who has preeclampsia is 34 weeks pregnant or more. But your mother was only 28 weeks when she found out she had preeclampsia, way too premature to deliver you. So what the Doctor has to do is give your mother medication and monitor her closely for the next few weeks to keep you in her womb as long as possible so that you have enough time to grow. If too much medication is given and your mother’s blood pressure goes too low, it could affect your growth. That’s why your mom is in a very difficult situation right now.

Your mother spent most of the past 10 days on the hospital bed. To pass time, she reads a lot, watches some TV shows off her Microsoft Surface tablet and occasionally updates her blog.

Her feet have swollen because of the severe water retention aggravated by this condition, so much that she is unable to fully fit into some shoes I bought her last week.

She often gets headaches, partly from the high blood pressure but also partly from the medicine she takes. She gets tired very very quickly and suddenly falls into spontaneous sleep.

The hardest part about watching your mother go through this isn’t the physical pain she goes through but the emotional grief. In the first few nights, I recall your mother laying back stiff as they tested her blood pressure. When the results came back to be at a dangerous level, she looked away from the nurse and waited for the nurse to leave. Once the nurse left she broke into tears, worried about what too high a blood pressure could do to you.

Yes, like I mentioned earlier, too high a blood pressure could cause a stroke on your mother but that’s not what she seemed worried about. She was worried about what the Doctor said could happen to you. That too high a blood pressure could cause the placenta to detach and endanger your life. Your mother wasn’t worried about herself. She was worried about you. And she was worried about me, about the medical bills that I will have to pay since our insurance doesn’t cover this medical condition. I won’t go into the exact amount but lets just say that we’re expecting that the medical bills for both you and your mother at the end of this episode will be enough to buy a brand new mid-range car. Fortunately though, I have always assured your mother that we will be able to afford the bills and give you and her the best medical care money can buy.

On the brighter side, your mother is really popular.

For the past ten days she has had friends visit her every single day. Her room is full of flowers and fruit baskets and things that people have sent over the past few days.

So many that we ran out of space and I had to bring some back home on some of the days.

Your mother and I are counting the days till when it is safe for you to be born. Each day longer her body is able to support you is a day crucial to your development. Just today we were reading up about the development of fetuses in their 30th week vs their 34th week and trying to decide when would it be safe for you. With this condition, we don’t have the luxury of waiting till you’re a full term baby. The Doctor tells us that this is a ticking time bomb. We can only fight this as long as we can and then … it will all be up to you Fighter. I pray you will have the strength you need to be the healthy baby you’re meant to be.

I feel the need to write this to you because I fear that one day the details of what your mother had to go through would be forgotten. I also pray that you will remember the difficult time your mother and father had to go through to bring you into this world.

One day when you are older….

I hope that whenever you get angry at your mother, you remember the patience she had in trying to keep you in her womb as long as she can.

I hope that whenever you get upset because your mother sends you to your room, you remember the weeks she had to spend in a hospital room for you.

I hope that whenever you think your parents don’t buy you the extravagant material things that your friends may have, you remember the even more extravagant bills we had to pay to bring you into this world safely.

I hope that whenever you have to care for your mother, you remember how she cared for your wellbeing more than hers even before you were born.

I hope that whenever you feel that you’re not strong enough to face adversity, you think of the strength your mother had throughout the whole time you were in her womb.

But amongst all… I hope that you will grow to be a healthy child who will love your parents as much as we love you.

Sincerely,
Daddy

PS: Your mother and I talked about the reaction you would probably have when you did read this when you’re older. We decided that you’ll probably be like “So annoying this Dad, before I’m born already want to lecture me.”. I hope that won’t be your reaction. Don’t be notty ah!

Exactly one year ago, Shorty and I got married after being in relationship for four years.

To celebrate our 1st  wedding anniversary I got special permission from the Doctor to bring Shorty out of the hospital just for a couple of hours. I had made plans for dinner and a small surprise. Just half an hour before we were supposed to go out though, Shorty did a blood pressure test and the results came back unfavorable. So the doctor decided that Shorty should stay in the hospital. I canceled all our plans except for a bouquet of her favorite flowers I bought her.

I thought that since last year at our Registration of Marriage I gave her bouquet of flowers, that it was only fitting that she had another one now on our first anniversary. I then bought some sandwiches and we had a simple meal by her bedside. It was a simple celebration but we had fun.

We both thought back of the beautiful wedding we had last year. Our wedding took place over the weekend. The 27th July was our Registration of Marriage and the 28th was our tea ceremony and wedding dinner.

This is a video of our Registration of Marriage.

And this our tea ceremony and wedding dinner.

I started thinking this morning about how I felt before I got married. Lots of people used to tell me how the fun stops when you get married and that getting married is good for the girl but never for the guy. That the guy loses his freedom and his own space. Or even… how do you know if you got the right person? Yes getting married was one of the biggest decisions of my life, but one of the best pieces of advice was given by a business partner of mine from the Philippines.

I asked him
“How do you know this is really the right one?”

He paused for a minute… and then he said
“Well… sometimes you may never really know if someone is right for you. But you’ll always know if someone is wrong.”

One year of being married to Shorty, all I can say is that being with Shorty makes me happy. I don’t know if this means she’s right or she’s wrong but hey… who cares. I’m happy and isn’t that what a relationship is about? It’s not about romance, not about money, not about finding the perfect person… it’s just about finding someone that makes you happy for the rest of your life.

So even though the past few days have been difficult for us… and even as I write this blog entry seated on an arm chair next to a hospital bed that Shorty is resting on… I am happy. I am happy not just because Shorty is getting the best medical care and that Fighter is still healthy, but I am happy because I’m with Shorty and Shorty makes me happy.

Happy Anniversary Shorty! Here’s to holding your hand through the best and the worst adventures we’ll have in our lives.