Pls put your hands together and welcome...

Chia Ee's arrival was via the scissors but unlike most C-section this one was not the "come-on-the-day-and-cut" kind of experience. SW was originally scheduled to have natural birth on Monday, however baby's head wouldn't set itself properly even after the doctors attempt to induce baby's birth. So the arrangement was made to do it with the knife the next morning.

After making this arrangement. I went home to rest, however SW called me to complained about severe boutst of contraction pain. I decided to go spend the night with her at the delivery suite at KK. What happened that night was something I didn't expect. SW had contraction pain in intervals. Whenever there is a contraction, there were grimace of agony that causes her body to convulse. I felt so helpless watching her in such a pain. This went on for the whole night from 12am to 7am. As a result we hardly slept. I was so tired that SW asked me to go home while she was pushed into the operating theatre. However the nurse asked me why I don't want to see the baby. She also told me that it would be fast and so I waited.

I bought a can of Red Bull and waited at the waiting area. Then I received a phone call from the midwife who directed me to another room. When I first set my eyes on this sweet little thing, my whole heart felt so serene. At first he looked nervous (Dang, the photo didn'tappear here!!). I could tell he was surveying the sight of this dark-skinned dude grinning like the Darlie man. Must be quite traumatising for a 10 minute old mind. Then I place him in my hands with his face facing me and I spoke to him, "Hello Chia Ee, it's great to see you at last!" Those were the exact words I told him and as I continued talking, I could see that he was responding to me. There was this exploratory gaze in his eyes that was he seems to be trying to remember. It was was a moment of pure magic!

The whole ordeal from the agonising 7 hours with SW at the delivery suite to the the first contact with the baby was a very spiritual one. The lesson that I learned was this: no reward is as sweetly savoured as the one that went through pain. SW and I went through that ordeal only to forgive baby for causing SW such pain. This brings to mind the old saying "no pain no gain". In our case it was not just a mere "gain" it was a precious gift of God!

Chia Ee*

*"Ee" means righteousness or intergrity. I love the way it's written in ancient Chinese characters where a "Lamb" covers over "me". To me, it means Christ righteousness covers over me. Together with my surname which means "Thankfulness", it means Thankful for the righteousness of Christ that covers over me.