1st Day home

Today Noreen finally came back to her home sweet home, she sleeps most of the time. She will wake up when she is hungry or when she had poo poo. I guess thats what baby's are born to do. We appoint her as our C.O.O (Chief of Orr see Orr niu)

Lucky we had arrange for a confinement lady, otherwise it would be chaotic, we had absolutely no experience and know zero about taking care of baby's. Mui Jie has been in this trade for about 10 years. She is very responsible, very clean and most important very experience. She gave us a lot of advise and the do's and don't. Her cooking is nice and its easier to get along with her. Its not easy suddenly you have to share your life with a stranger even tho for just 28 days.

The hospital Bill came up to RM6,450, I think its reasonable. The nurse and staff are very friendly, the food unfortunately, not nice.

I had splitting headache from the over excitement, came home at 8pm and knock-out at 9pm. Had a good 12 hour sleep and would be back to see my daughter at lunch time.

here are more photos of Noreen:

The 4th of July 2009

Today Noreen Elena Lee was born at Pantai Indah Hospital, she is a beautiful living doll weighting 2.85kg. I was standing right outside the operating room and waiting anxiously to hear her cry. I waited for about 45minutes and I heard her loud cry and I knew it was my baby. The feeling settle and I was more anxious to see her, I met her in a tiny baby cubicle when the nurse wheel her out, I laid eyes on my little princess. The feeling is fantastic, the first thing I asked the nurse was, Boy or Girl? she refuse to answer and say lemme surprise you, she remove the towel and she was a girl.

I followed them to the nursery and they did a simple test and then weight her, gave her the Vitamin K injections. Then when they;'re done I went in and touch my baby for the first time. I was overwhelm and happy tears filled my eyes. I finally met Noreen, after waiting all my life. She was so beautiful, she look like a doll. I was there when she opened her eyes for the first time and I'm glad the first person she saw was me.

I waited in Lita's room and she came out about 1.5 hours later, I'm glad that they;re both ok, it was a suspend but it is over.

3 Days to the 4th of July

We've chosen this day for our baby's birthday. Its just 3 days away and the excitement is building up momentum. Just cant believe I'll be a father, its seem so unreal. Lita has opt for Caesarian and we'll have to check in on Sat morning 7am.

This will be the day that I get to meet my baby, the feeling is like setting up a meeting with a long long time cyber friend. You wonder how she look like, you wonder how she react, its like getting to a another person you know you're very close to but surprisingly you had never met in your life. The feeling is just plain weird.

The most important thing now is she gets to be a healthy baby, nothing else matters anymore to me. I offer my prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ that everything will be fine.

Our Father who art in Heaven

Hallowed be thy name

Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done

On earth as it is in Heaven

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our sins

As we forgive others who sin against us

Do not lead us into temptations

But delivery from evil.

Vitamin K at birth: to inject or not to inject?

Reprinted from International Chiropractic Pediatric Association Newsletter
September/October 2002 Issue

by Linda Folden Palmer, DC

UPDATE to below article: A very large 2003 study in the British Journal of Cancer (Fear et al.) has suggested that there is no link between bolus vitamin K provision at birth and leukemia or other cancers. (The study eliminated 2% of cancer cases in their study group that were diagnosed prior to 3 months of age. They additionally did not count Down's syndrome babies and some others.) I'm inclined to believe that the risk is slight if it exists. Still, the conflicts in findings lead me to want to see an analysis of premature babies only, as any effect will be enhanced in this set and may provide a more definitive answer for older babies --- not to question provision in preemies as the benefits of vitamin K administration are more important in premature infants.

Newborn infants routinely receive a vitamin K shot after birth in order to prevent (or slow) a rare problem of bleeding into the brain weeks after birth. Vitamin K promotes blood clotting. The fetus has low levels of vitamin K as well as other factors needed in clotting. The body maintains these levels very precisely.¹ Supplementation of vitamin K to the pregnant mother does not change the K status of the fetus, confirming the importance of its specific levels.

Toward the end of gestation, the fetus begins developing some of the other clotting factors, developing two key factors just before term birth.² It has recently been shown that Vitamin K is involved in regulating the rate of cell division in the fetus. It's possible that abnormally high levels of vitamin K can allow cell division to get out of hand, leading to cancer.

What's the Concern?

The problem of bleeding into the brain occurs mainly from 3 to 7 weeks after birth in just over 5 out of 100,000 births (without vitamin K injections); 90% of those cases are breastfed infants,³ because formulas are supplemented with unnaturally high levels of vitamin K. Forty percent of these infants suffer permanent brain damage or death.

The cause of this bleeding trauma is generally liver disease that has not been detected until the bleeding occurs. Several liver problems can reduce the liver's ability to make blood-clotting factors out of vitamin K; therefore extra K helps this situation. Infants exposed to drugs or alcohol through any means are especially at risk, and those from mothers on anti-epileptic medications are at very high risk and need special attention.

Such complications reduce the effectiveness of vitamin K, and in these cases, a higher level of available K could prevent the tragic intracranial bleeding. This rare bleeding disorder has been found to be highly preventable by a large-dose injection of vitamin K at birth.

The downside of this practice however is a possibly 80% increased risk of developing childhood leukemia. While a few studies have refuted this suggestion, several tightly controlled studies have shown this correlation to be most likely.^4,5 A more recent analysis of six different studies suggests it may be a 10 or 20% increased risk. This is still a significant number of avoidable cancers.⁶

Apparently the cell division that continues to be quite rapid after birth continues to depend on precise amounts of vitamin K to proceed at the proper rate. Introduction of levels that are 20,000 times the newborn level, the amount usually injected, can have devastating consequences.

The Newborn's Diet

Nursing raises the infant's vitamin K levels very gradually after birth so that no disregulation occurs that would encourage leukemia development. Additionally, the clotting system of the healthy newborn is well planned, and healthy breastfed infants do not suffer bleeding complications, even without any supplementation.⁷

While breastfed infants demonstrate lower blood levels of vitamin K than the "recommended" amount, they show no signs of vitamin K deficiency (leading one to wonder where the "recommended" level for infants came from). But with vitamin K injections at birth, harmful consequences of some rare disorders can be averted.

Infant formulas are supplemented with high levels of vitamin K, generally sufficient to prevent intracranial bleeding in the case of a liver disorder and in some other rare bleeding disorders. Although formula feeding is seen to increase overall childhood cancer rates by 80%, this is likely not related to the added vitamin K.

The Numbers

Extracting data from available literature reveals that there are 1.5 extra cases of leukemia per 100,000 children due to vitamin K injections, and 1.8 more permanent injuries or deaths per 100,000 due to brain bleeding without injections. Adding the risk of infection or damage from the injections, including a local skin disease called "scleroderma" that is seen rarely with K injections,⁸ and even adding the possibility of healthy survival from leukemia, the scales remain tipped toward breastfed infants receiving a prophylactic vitamin K supplementation. However, there are better options than the .5 or 1 milligram injections typically given to newborns.

A Better Solution
The breastfed infant can be supplemented with several low oral doses of liquid vitamin K⁹ (possibly 200 micrograms per week for 5 weeks, totaling 1 milligram, even more gradual introduction may be better). Alternatively, the nursing mother can take vitamin K supplements daily or twice weekly for 10 weeks. (Supplementation of the pregnant mother does not alter fetal levels but supplementation of the nursing mother does increase breastmilk and infant levels.)

Either of these provides a much safer rate of vitamin K supplementation. Maternal supplementation of 2.5 mg per day, recommended by one author, provides a higher level of vitamin K through breastmilk than does formula,¹⁰ and may be much more than necessary.

Formula provides 10 times the U.S. recommended daily allowance," and this RDA is about 2 times the level in unsupplemented human milk. One milligram per day for 10 weeks for mother provides a cumulative extra 1 milligram to her infant over the important period and seems reasonable. Neither mother nor infant require supplementation if the infant is injected at birth.¹¹

The Bottom Line
There is no overwhelming reason to discontinue this routine prophylactic injection for breastfed infants. Providing information about alternatives to allow informed parents to refuse would be reasonable. These parents may then decide to provide some gradual supplementation, or, for an entirely healthy term infant, they may simply provide diligent watchfulness for any signs of jaundice (yellowing of eyes or skin) or easy bleeding.

There appears to be no harm in supplementing this vitamin in a gradual manner however. Currently, injections are provided to infants intended for formula feeding as well, although there appears to be no need as formula provides good gradual supplementation. Discontinuing routine injections for this group alone could reduce cases of leukemia.

One more curious look at childhood leukemia is the finding that when any nation lowers its rate of infant deaths, their rate of childhood leukemia increases.¹² Vitamin K injections may be responsible for some part of this number, but other factors are surely involved, about which we can only speculate.

Source: http://babyreference.com/VitaminKinjectORnot.htm

Nowadays with biotechnology advancing faster than research of consequenses, we are at risk of more mistake option than non. I think I'll most probably go for the oral option which feels to be the safer method.

Update:

Spoke to Dr.Sudha about the vitamin K injection. Seems this is the standard practice in malaysia for quite some time now. Was included in my ceasarian package too. I brought up about vitamin K alarming 20,000X over dose and the possibility of raising the chances of leukimia, and the alternative of oral dosage instead. She told me she will check with her pediatrician.

I was thinking to opt for oral dosage if its anyway possible.

Another note from Dr. Sudha, she says vitamin K is very crucial and must be given no matter in which form as without the boost there are risk when they cut the cord or when giving any injection and the bleeding wont stop.

35 weeks

Lita at 35 weeks

Bio Insurance: Stemlife vs cryocord

I was introduce to Cord blood banking by my sister, apparently she checked out the cost in Bangkok (she's married there) and it costed a wooping RM10,000 for enrollment and RM650 for yearly fee. So out of curiousity I started doing my own armchair research online.

I got really sucked into the idea and think its worth investing, they called it Bio-insurance. I will not elaborate but you can check/research online and I do believe stem cell is the future of medical treatment. In Malaysia we're fortunate to have 4 private Cord banking company and the fee's are much more affordable as compared over in Bangkok. The average fee's ranging from RM2000 - RM2,700 and annual fee of only RM250.

The 3 main player for blood cord banking are the below,

www.stemlife.com

www.cryocord.com.my

www.pdn.gov.my

I've met both their representative and am happy with both their presentation. Tho I've to say the first time I logged on to their website was on a sunday and since it was written 24/7, I decide to call them, Cryocord had someone answered my call and immediately had their rep called me for an appointment the next day (monday). Where else Stemlife despite calling twiced no one picked up the call, the next day I called them up and someone finally answered the call and promised to have a rep calling me which she did after a month.

I did some research and found other company or someone attacking stemlife furiously on the net http://stemlie.wordpress.com/ten-reasons-why-you-should-not-use-stemlie/ when I read the blog at first I've made up my mind not to bank with them couple with my personal passed telephone lousy experience convinced me more.

Somehow a girl called me 3 nights ago and said she was from stemlife, I was sarcastic to her for the 1 month delay but still I gave her and my baby a chance to let her do the presentation. Prior to meeting her I had made up my mind to bank with the other company.

After her presentation, somehow she manage to convince me. And I signed up the next 2 days. I will reason out a brief comparison here on why I choose Stemlife instead of the other.

1. Bag or Vial, I choosed bag

Stemlife promote bag and cryocord promote vial

Sound logical at first when you can break vial into 5 vial/bottle and use them as when you need them. But on further research 5 vial is hardly enough to cover a transplant for an adult. Furthermore vial are open system and carries a risk for contamination.

You can take 1 single vial for cell expansion/cloning without spoiling the whole batch, but bag system has a small ready cut portion for you to do exactly that.

Bag are cheaper and safer for the long run, Btw both company offer both system for storage.

2. Does it work?

I've asked the first company if they've record of actual thawing a sample and safe any life?

Her answer was yes, but its P&C and details cannot be reveal. Am I supposed to follow blessed is he who believe but have not seen?

Stemlife however had a few cases published in newspaper, which to me is the most important factor as this is the sole reason I'm willing to spend money on something that had indeed work exactly to what we wanted if on the unfortunate event calls for it.

3. Will they exist after 20 years?

Well this is the million dollar question, but I'll choose the bigger company right now and hope for the best.

4. Transplant cost

A stem cell transplant which I was told would cost RM120,ooo!!! in private hospital and around RM60,000 in government hospital. Stemlife offer a RM100,000 cash, transplant cost courtesy from the company which is very important to us as we're not millionaires. Where else the other company offer us to buy insurance to cover the cost. The problem with buying insurance is you can only claim once, as I would be buying a life insurance for my baby, if the cost exceed the amount I'll have to find other means to top up. With Stemlife the Rm100k would be a life saver and additional cost wold be bear by our insurance.

These are the 4 most important criteria that made up my mind, about the poison blog, well I'm not sure how true the claims were and furthermore it could be made by a fired and emotionally filled ex-employee or by some competitor bad mouthing. So I think I'll take it as a pinched of salt at the moment.

The most troubling thing in my mind right now is both the representative fail to inform me that malaysia do have our public cord blood banking which I will call them next monday and find out more. Both the representative told me Malaysia do not have a public cord blood banking!

11.30am 30 Mac 2009

I've just called pusat darah negara, apparently they do have public cord banking, but the collection is strictly if you give birth at KL General Hospital. So out of the question for me.

The 20 week

Its been 20 weeks of roller coaster ride, lita had her craving from durian to tomyam.  Thank god her morning sickness days are over and we wonder why they call it morning sickness when the sickness seem more like an all day event. 

Food she cannot take:

Milk

Soya bean milk

Strawberries

Two ultrasound scan seem to lean our little angel to a girl, and the curiousity is getting more intensed by the day. Nowadays our shopping no longer like those carefree days, we would flock the baby dept and spend hours sifting every product. The more we analyse the greater our confusion hahaha.

We've bought about 70% of the baby things and still more to go, baby cot courtesy of Robert, bouncing Net courtesy of Ah yau my cousin.

This is Lita at 

Happy new year

2009 is here, the journey of our angel has crossed to a new year, The passed 12 weeks wasnt easy especially from week 6. Lita had extra dose of morning sickness, yea morning sickness is just a term probably to make new mama feel better but the sickness she has was, morning sickness, afternoon sickness, evening sickness and night sickness, now this they didnt tell LOL.

She was so worned out that she stayed in bed most of the time, and I was feeling more like a daddy bird than a real father, every now and then I've to zoom out to buy her tom yam, later she would crave for hokkien mee...buy groceries ... satay ....ice cream .... I'm really feeling like a magpie father bird attending to his nest flying nonstop.

But today is our 3rd appointment with our doctor, I was excited as she is to have a glimps of our baby, we have the normal chat and Lita cant wait to be on the examination table. She weight 43.8kg which considering all the vomitting she just maintained her weight with no lost or gain. Finally ultrasound time.... both of us locked our eyes at the monitor and for the first time my heart rated raced passed 100BPM when I saw our baby, she has grown much bigger from the last time, Dr Sudha pointed at her hands and explained to us but yes I could see her structure very clearly, the heads, hands, legs and body... amazingly she seem a very naughty baby, she was twitching and making this quick turning, we can see her hands moving, one moment touching her head and then put her hands down, and she turned her whole body and face us.

For the first time I can say I was very excited, unliked the last time I was rather numb about it, Lita of coz was so trilled that tears are almost flowing from her eyes. She asked the doc picture!

Dr. Sudha says she can stop the duphaston and finished up whatever folic acid left, the next visit she would give her iron suppliment. Her morning sickness eased up a bit now as compared to 4 weeks ago, but now new symptoms are mild gastric and heart burn which is another bummer.

When we were on the way home, I felt really excited in my heart, its an amazing feeling to see our baby moving, the feeling is like in a beautiful dream, something I've never thought existed in me. It soften your heart and mellowed down your temper making you feel like a softie for awhile.

We had lunch and after that I went to work, Lita sms me later and says she was so excited that she cannot sleep, yea I fully understand that she cannot contain her joy and excitement, she says after looking at our baby moving all the sufferings from the vomitting, nauseas, gastric, headache and heartburn dissappeared and she says the sufferings are really worthy. We decide that we can now announce the new baby to the world.

I'm glad to have made it this far and I'm really thankful to our Lord Jesus Christ for taking the 3 of us safely crossed the firsts trimester.

The Heart that changes my world

Today we went for our 3rd check up, made a rushing appointment for 3.30pm, The first thing we talk about is Lita had been vomiting day and night, Dr. Kumari says this is a good sign in a way, means the baby is healthy and is progressing. Anyway we proceed to the examination table, she applied the gel and put the scanner on.

Today is the first time we see our baby's heartbeat, its a tiny blip, a white flickering dot on the screen that look somewhat like a tiny bulb on a chrismas tree. Lita put on a smile. Its amazing to see our child progressing. I've read many a times about people saying how great and wonderful, but I just cant find the words to describe what I'm feeling inside of me. Its like watching a movie, but this movie happen to include me, my life, my future but not so of my passed. It is about how I would sculp my own future to dictate the future of my child.

We spoke to Doc about lita problem continous vomiting and she asked us to take the Veloxin tablet that she has prescripted 2 weeks ago, unfortunately Lita stopped the medication which do stop the vomiting but making her sleepy and blur the whole day.

Doc says well its a lose lose situation, if you dont take the pill and continue vomiting her body PH will turn acidic due to low in water, and she'll end up in the hospital taking drips. So she ordered her to take a urine test which the result will be out later in the evening. Told us to take care and we talked about the possiblity of caesarean blah blah blah paid and we left.

The journey home while waiting at the lights, I think I know what I'm feeling, parenting is about the next generation, its sole focus is on the times ahead. Having your own child is like completing the cycle of life, its an achievement that has absolutely no benchmark. You have your own unique mission in life to bring a child into the world and your child is your apprentice. Doesnt matter what I've achieve in the passed, nothing competes with the utmost important purpose that I was build and design for, well everyone do have a penis or a vaginal right? I tried running away from this responsibility all this while, not that I'm being irresponsible, just that I've watch too much news on TV and read too much news on the internet about our not so wonderful world.

Nervous, yes, will I face the challenge ahead, YES! I will standby him/her no matter what it brings, I think this is the journey that've been waiting, for the passed 37 years I've learn so much and experience so many, I finally understand the sole purposed of my learning, I'm unaware that I'm preparing to be a father, to passed down my knowledge and to take care of my family.

I know I'm proceeding to another phase in my life, and I thank god for what he had brought me so far, the blessing is not and never to be taken for granted.......