If you are born as a Dragon in China you happen to carry the best of all star signs and are considered blessed with luck and fortune for the rest of your life. I read somewhere that alone in Shanghai it is estimated that an additional 40.000 babies were born this year, just to ensure to get this star sign.
Out of luck our little Hannah turns out to be one of those 40.000. And before the year ends I thought we share with you briefly how Hannahs arrival was for us.
Well, in a nutshell: It was beautiful!
Everything turned out - almost like - planned. Just a little faster than expected. Hannah was born on a Wednesday night. Only the Saturday before we had been to see the doctors who assured us that if anything our baby would arrive a few days later than the expected due date which was originally 26.01.213.
Based on that information I felt quite relaxed about that our babies arrival and was looking forward to another 2 weeks of relaxing and pampering myself.
On Wednesday, 16th of January I woke up and felt good. I made my shopping list for the day when I noticed some pain which grew a bit stronger..I was pretty sure that these were practise contractions and didn´t pay it much attention.
Over the hours they became a bit stronger so I decided to skip shopping and to watch a DVD instead.
By 3 in the afternoon I found myself watching the film and moving between the sofa with my hot water bottle and my birthing ball, too ease the pain.
Just out of interesst I thought I could try and see if I could time these "contractions"..It seemed like they were coming every 5 minutes - but I was pretty sure that I meassured it wrong this was a false alarm But just in case I gave Paul a call to tell him that I was not feeling too great and that I had asked Lisa, our midwife, to come and have a look later.
5pm and I found myself not beeing able to stand up straight any more. All I could do was walking around the appartment...For the first time the thought occured that MAYBE this could be the real thing??
5:30 Lisa arrived and checked me. The answer: This is real - Your little girl is on it´s way!
My reaction: WHAT?????? .. Can´t be!!! She is not supposed to come for another 2 weeks!! I still need to practise hypnobirthing!!
6pm Paul arrived home from work, having to cancel his team building event. Having heard the news he managed to stay all calm, packing the hospital bag together.
As it was rushour in Shanghai I decided to take a bath next to relax me..The pain got worse, which is an indication that you are REALLY in labour.
7pm - ok, maybe time now to go to hospital. We got in a cab and on a different level of conciousness I thought: This is hillarious, like a film scene: Me laying half accross the back of a cab in Shanghai, groaning with each surge, leaning onto Paul, holding onto my belly..
You would have thought that the taxi driver was putting the foot down..no!.. we had the slowest driver on Shanghai in front of us, impossible to overtake.
30 Minutes later we arrived at the hospital, where I was let into the birthing suite and got checked.. All good.. baby definately on the way. My Doctor was not on duty but I heard that MK, the midwife was still around. I asked if MK could come and see me because I knew I could trust her to execute my birthing plan. My birthing plan had foreseen all sorts of stuff: yoga, watching DVD´s, listening to my hypnobirthing CD, mediate with the baby..
Well, no time for any of that left! MK arrived at 9pm and I went into the Jacuzzy to relax. We turned off the light, lit some candles and listened to some musik.I lost the feeling for time eventually but felt all looked after by Paul and MK and knew it would all be ok.
Eventually MK asked me to come out to check the baby and me ..I heard her saying: OK, not long now we are getting very close. My subconcious response was: Oh my god! Already?? I´m going to be a mum in a minute!!..Is this serious??
At 23:45 time seemed to come to a stand still and little Hannah slipped gently into this world.
It was a celebration of life. No words can describe it.
But what we can share with you are some impressions on what happened after that -
The first 3 days of with "Shanghai Dragon Baby"
Hooray we are family:
with MK...
So tiny...
everything is still too big!
afternoon snooze...
Mommy recovering fast:
Best hospital food ever!!.. amazing a´la carte menue.. well if you pay 8.000 EUR for
this kind of "holiday" you can expect decent food :-).
Good that we have insurance!
After 3 days: Ready for the first journey!!
And guess what: She likes Shanghai Taxi´s! -. even the speedy ones!!
Family Lincoln is checking out...
MK told us that that night they had another 5 deliveries which for a private hospital like this one is a lot! It makes me wonder how many they have today, with the last chance to bring a little dragon into this world.
I can not believe that it has been over 3 weeks that Hannah has joined us. She is developing beautifully and like a little hungry caterpillar she is feeding well, making up for her original low weight.
Let´s hope she sleeps like a baby on today new years night! :-)
Congratulations to you guys for this blessed Dragon Baby. Really can't wait to meet her! Love, Raab family
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