KKH Class A1 Delivery suite

I'll do a little review for the Class A1 suite that I stayed in during my delivery.

It's big and spacious, bigger than some of the hotel room that i have seen, with a bed for me, 2 side tables, 1 cupboard and a sofa for the hubby or anyone who wants to sleep overnight. The attached toilet was spacious too with shower facilities and shower essentials.

It also came with extra bedsheet and blanket, some toiletries and essential stuff for the mother ( maternity pad and extra dressing gown etc). There's also pampers and wet wipes for Phoebe from the nursery. Phoebe was dressed in KKH's clothes and swaddle cloth. The only thing that she wore from home was the mittens. Another plus point, the view from my window was great! we could see the national day rehearsal fireworks.

There's also water dispenser (hot and cold) along the corridor and the nursery was on the same level as the wards. Mothers can request to room in with their babies, if tired, can request to send to nursery.

For us, we requested for Phoebe to room in with us. We only send back to nursery for supplementary feeding as my breastmilk wasnt established during the first few days. The nurses said it will usually take around 3 days before there's letdown of milk. We also had Phoebe with us through the night unless we were too tired. It really takes lots of determination to feed Phoebe in the night and she usually took around 30-45 min for latching (not including the supplementary feeding) and her feeding interval was around 2-3 hrs.

Service wise, there was a lady who came everyday to ask for my meal preference. For traditional mothers like me, there's confinement food on the menu.

The nurses were very knowledgeable and friendly and whenever they changed shift, they will go around to introduce to each of the wards. They also taught me how to latch Phoebe the proper way.

KKH had very good tagging system for identification. I had two tags on me, one is the normal plastic tag with name and IC, the other is a musical tag that will have music when Phoebe is near.

So me, Phoebe and the cot had the same synchronized music tag. When Phoebe was placed near me, there would be music, when Phoebe was placed back in the cot, there would also be music. This was like double assurance.

Medicine wise, for each round, the nurse ask for your name and IC, to prevent medication mix-up.

On the overall, for the comfort and privacy, the bill was worth it.

We had visitors everyday so it was a good choice to go for single bedded.

Cost wise, for my case as it was c sect, my bill came to 7+K, Phoebe's bill came to 1+K (mother and baby are billed separately)

Luckily, I could use around 3K of my medisave to offset.

PreNatal consultation wise, it cost around 100+ for each visit, excluding medicine as I was with The Private Suite.

And now I am in the final week of my confinement.. cant wait to wash my hair! I will definitely miss my family when I shift back to my in-laws place.

Over here, my parents dot on the little one, carrying her when I was busy with other chores. My two sisters will also play with her when they are back from work. My dad even comes home every afternoon during lunch to look at Phoebe.

Hopefully Phoebe will be less fussy when she's back to my in-laws place as I will be handling her myself most of the time.

But I believe, I will be more independent and able to care for her better as time goes by :)

Phoebe's updates over the weeks

1st week

2nd week

3rd week

Phoebe's weight been increasing steadily over the weeks. The Hubby brought her to the polyclinic 3 times over the weeks and doctor said we do not have to monitor her jaundice level anymore ~

Her feeding schedules have been quite regular, drinking at every 3-4 hrs even through the night. Started with 30 ml to 120 ml per feed now. Her baby acne's cleared quite abit too. I was reading up that is common for newborns to get acne/pimples and rashes.

Hubby had to work so most of the time, i'll be in charge of feeding duties. Luckily mum is around in the afternoon to take care of phoebe while i need to prepare her milk. 

And so my life now is revolving around feeding milk, pumping milk and burping milk hahahah

She will always make lots of expressions when she's drinking milk. Maybe i'll get my sister to film down on one of the days :D

Arrival of the little one

This is an overdue post as i'm currently doing confinement at my mum's place.. its been two weeks since the arrival of our little one and i hope to write this post while it's still fresh in my memory.

My delivery is a scheduled c-sect due to her positioning so we had her delivery scheduled on 1 Aug.

The hubby and I could not sleep much the day before and we woke up around 530am and prepared to go KKH around 615am..

We reached around 630am and lazed around till the Day Surgery centre open at 7am.

After registering, doing some miscellaneous checks and taking some medicine, i was finally shown to the OT around 8am. The hubby could not enter and witness her delivery as he was still coughing.

The OT was alot bigger than i had expected, with 3 nurses, my gynae and 2 anaesthetist.
I had 4 injections in total, 2 for the spinal epidural and 2 for the drip on my hand..

The spinal epidural was more bearable than i thought and the nurses proceeded to screen off the lower body with the OT gown..

Even though my lower body was fully numbed, i could still feel the pushing, pulling and thugging of my muscles. I tried distracting myself by looking at the monitors that i was hooked up on and after what seemed like ages. i heard cries... made me tear alittle.. the little one is out!
Cries are always a sign of life!

The nurses quickly whisked off the little one and i was then stitched up by my gynae.
The stitching took much longer than the delivery of the little one.

After the stitching, i was wheeled to the recovery room and i requested for the hubby to come over..
We finally had a proper look of the little one!

The nurse laid her on my chest and the little one was such a sturdy baby lol, managed to lift up her head and tried to crawl upwards. The hubby managed to take a photo of the little one who just managed to open her eyes and see us.

However the effects of the epidural suddenly kicked in and i shivered very badly. The recovery room nurses had to wrap me up in layers of blanket and even brought in a heater to warm me up.

Finally my shivering subsided and i was wheeled up to my suite while the little one was wheeled to the nursery for further checks.

And so, we have officially entered parenthood :)

I was warded for 4 days 3 nights in total. I was bedridden on the first day as the effects of the epidural took time to wear off. The wound was hurting me and i could only manage to sit up on the second day and finally walked on the third day.

Thankful for the visits from families and friends and also help from them in taking care of the little one..
We fumbled abit in handling her but we're sure it will get better with more practice.

Now i can handle her on my own at my mum's place, except the bathing as i cannot "touch water" during confinement.

And we have also chosen and registered her name after consulting the fortune teller and also our parents.

Welcome to the world :)

in the recovery room, her little eyes opening to greet us

proud grandma

and so she sleeps with her hands out, which my sisters say is very similar to my sleeping posture ><