Of Trials

The first 14 days of confinement were not a bed of roses for me.
And it has nothing to do with the confinement ‘rules’.
Allow me to share on what happened…

Scenario 1:

The day after Khaleel’s birth, I received a call from Umra, telling me that their paediatrician has something to discuss with me. Mr. Sunshine and I brought Khaleel along to Umra that evening.
The paediatrician told us that they just got the results for the vaginal swab for group B streptococcus (GBS) they did on me the first time I came to Umra the previous Wednesday. It was positive.

You see, being a GBS carrier is perfectly normal and natural as it is found as part of the normal gut flora in 20-30% of men and women, and the vagina in roughly 1 in 4 women.
So, it does not carry any health risk to the carrier, which in this case is myself.

However, a baby delivered via a vaginal delivery has a risk to develop a GBS infection.

The paediatrician wanted to admit Khaleel and start him on intravenous gentamicin & benzylpenicillin.
You can imagine how shocked both Mr Sunshine and I were.

We were not keen about starting our 2 day-old baby on antibiotics unnecessarily, so we asked for some time to think about it. He gave us 10 minutes. We could not make a decision that quick, so we signed the at-own-risk (AOR) discharge slip and brought Khaleel home.

We called a couple of friends who were doctors and asked for their opinions and decided to get a second opinion that night itself, from PPUM.

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I packed my bags just in case Khaleel had to be admitted.

We arrived at PPUM close to midnight that day.
The medical officer at PPUM told us that he thinks Khaleel is fine as it has already been 40 hours since his birth, however he did a blood test just to be sure.
We waited until after 0200 hours for the results, and Alhamdulillah they were normal. We reached home almost 0400 hours that morning.

Yes, I went through all the above with my sore perineum, 40 hours after delivering my baby. *nangis*

Scenario 2:

On Monday, November 23rd, Khayla woke up with a fever and she was coughing really bad. I told Mr Sunshine to bring her to her paediatrician in DEMC to get her checked.

That afternoon, Mr Sunshine called me from the hospital to tell me that Khayla needed to be admitted. She was down with acute bronchitis.

I immediately broke down.
My confinement lady, Kak Anda tried to console me and told me that it was not good to cry that much during confinement.
I could not control my emotions.
My heart broke thinking about Khayla and Mr. Sunshine who had to skip classes to stay with Khayla in the hospital.

Khayla was admitted that day, and I was at home with Khaleel and Kak Anda.
I was so exhausted from not being able to take a nap during the day and from all the crying I did.
Khaleel slept with Kak Anda that night. *nangis*
I was fortunate that I had expressed breastmilk stored in the refrigerator.

That night, I cried myself to sleep.

Alhamdulillah, Khayla was discharged last Friday.
Mr Sunshine skipped 3 days of classes last week. Poor him.
I spent 4 nights (crying every now and then because I missed Mr. Sunshine and Khayla) at home with Khaleel and Kak Anda.

Now, how’s that for drama ?
Hehe.

But Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear, kan ?

Goodnight ! 🙂

xoxo