Our son Juni Kim Kibuishi was born on November 3rd, 2009, at 1:06 pm. Despite Amy’s early labor being fairly smooth, the delivery ended up being a very difficult ordeal. The culprit was a prolapsed umbilical cord, and it was looking very much at times like we were about to lose our baby boy. At the hospital, our obstretrician decided to move Amy out of the delivery room and into the operating room to prepare for an emergency C-section, but she also wanted to give Amy one more chance to push him out, since he was so close.
The tension in the operating room was thick, with nurses and doctors scrambling to prepare for the surgery while Amy was screaming in pain. She had been on an epidural but was taken off of it during her transfer to the operating room, so she could now feel the pain of her contractions. They put her back on the medication to prepare her for surgery, but there was a window of time where she could feel everything, and during her pushing, she said she felt like fainting. The heartrate monitor was ominous, with Juni’s heartrate alternating between very high and dangerously low, and it felt like a ticking clock. The moment felt like a surreal nightmare, and I was mentally preparing myself for the worst. The only thing I knew to do was to talk to Amy and encourage her to push. I tried to drown out the sound of the erratic heartrate with words of encouragement, and the nurses were doing the same. One nurse yelled “push like you’re mad!!” and that seemed to be the best advice given in that room, because after that, Amy looked determined. She went from crying sad to screaming mad, and I could tell she wasn’t going to let Juni go out like this.
When I heard Juni crying, it was the greatest sense of relief I have ever experienced in my life. For a few moments I thought I was about to lose the two people I cared about more than anything in the world, but thankfully Amy and our doctor were able to get Juni out quickly before things got any worse. I cut the umbilical cord with a disdain for it, since it was the source of so much trouble. Not only did it come out before Juni, but it was also very thin. Along with a poor placenta, it provided Juni with less nourishment. He arrived in the world at only 4 pounds, 13.8 ounces, but he is healthy, despite having to deal with such bad roommates.
We have to thank Dr. Toni Morrissey and the staff at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena for the amazing job they did under extreme pressure. The next day, we could hear nurses in the halls talking about the high drama delivery with some excitement. What looked like a routine birth ended up feeling like an episode of ER. Next time, we could all do without the tension, and we hope our baby #2 has much better travel arrangements.
Despite his difficult journey into the world, Juni seems to be doing well. He has to deal with getting jaundice out of his system, but we expected this considering he is mostly Asian, and it tends to run in the family. Tim (my brother-in-law) and Sunni (my mother-in-law) have been an excellent source of support for us, as we work to try to get used to the early parenting days. When I close my eyes now, all I see is Juni’s face, and I am so happy to see him when I open them too. I’m surprised how quickly being a parent starts to feel natural, because the first couple of days I felt a bit of shock and confusion, wondering how I was going to deal with everything ahead of me (the lack of sleep, the parenting duties). But once I’ve spent time with Juni, I realized that I would do anything to make sure he’s okay. That natural instinct is making the hard stuff a lot easier. Looking forward to seeing this little guy grow up!
