He has arrived

We are very excited to report that Russell David Yun Ming Fung was born last night, Jan 29th, 2011, at 5:06 pm at 9 lbs 0 oz. God is good to us! To see some of my father's pictures, go to http://www.traderg.com/Russell

Please continue to pray for Tracy's recovery and Russell's continued good health. Thanks everyone who has prayed for us. Due to restrictions on the hospital's internet, we are not able to post easily on facebook, and we can't post any photos here, so we apologize for the delay in updating you all.

I know a lot of people have been praying for us and this intended VBAC, so I thought I'd write up a little description of the delivery, which was a quite crazy and ended up in a c-section.

The delivery of Russell (it's long so don't read this if you don't feel like it):

Ironically, it was the perfect unmedicated VBAC! Everything we prayed for happened (well, except Russell coming out).

I went into labor on my own, at home, at about 1:00 a.m. on Friday. Contractions gradually became regular over time, and as they became about 3 minutes apart regularly, we called my mom to come over to watch Annalise and off we went to the hospital (about 5 a.m.). We were delighted when we got to the hospital to find that since our doctor was not available, we were assigned to an incredible midwife. We were also very happy that I was measuring 5 cm dilated, and they thought I was progressing nicely. Our midwife was super supportive of our desires not to have an epidural and have a VBAC, and we loved her. She made suggestions of how to cope with pain through movement and positions, and was absolutely fantastic. Because I was GBS positive, I had to be on an IV with antibiotics, so we were bound in position to be close to the IV machine, and they also wanted to constantly monitor the baby since I was a VBAC, so we were restricted in location, but I was able to stand or move around to cope with the pain.

So labor progressed, painfully, but manageably, and we were pretty much left to ourselves to cope with it as we saw fit. After a few hours a doctor came in and broke my bag of waters, which was clear - which is what you want for a healthy baby. Baby Russell was doing very very well for all of the labor with a great heartbeat. Unfortunately (for me) I was 7 cm dilated when they broke my water and then it shrunk down to 6 cm, so we still had a ways to go with labor. They were saying to us that we'd probably have a baby by lunchtime, though. This proved not to be true. So, as the pain increased and became beyond belief, we progressed and hit 10 centimeters around noon, when I was told it was time to "have that baby!" The pushing was about to begin. The midwife predicted about an hour for pushing before we'd have a baby in our arms (which also proved not to be true). Pushing was hard, but I was so hopeful that it would all end soon, so we energetically went forward. The midwife said that I was pushing well, but after an hour the baby had not moved much. We believe that perhaps his head was turned the wrong direction so we began trying different positions to encourage him to rotate. Half an hour after that, he was still not moving downwards. At that point the midwife sat down with us and said she was recommending an epidural. She really believed this was our chance to deliver vaginally. The epidural was supposed to provide me with the extra energy needed to push Russell out. This was probably one of the most upsetting parts of the delivery because of my epidural concerns due to the problems I had with Annalise. However, we had a long discussion with the anesthesiologist and attending doctor about our concerns and felt confident that they would listen to us if we need a C-section in the end. We went ahead with the epidural, which still amazes me as I had no idea that people received epidurals after having already gone through their entire labor and pushing stages. After the epidural, I rested and resumed pushing. I had a lot more energy and pushed extremely hard. I was able to push the baby down to +1 station, but the midwife told me they couldn't suction him out unless he was at +2. In total I pushed for about 4 hours at which point they told us they didn't believe he was going to come out. After tears and prayers, we went in for the C-section.

We had an amazing anesthesiologist and team of doctors and nurses who all understood our concerns and made sure that my epidural worked. We especially praise God that He was able to calm my fears and allow me to face the C-section in peace. The anesthesiologist said this was essential and I know that it was only God who did it. When we finally heard Russell cry, we cried tears as well of joy.

The birth was not what we planned, and yet at the same time, most of it was. God constantly answered prayers like providing an amazing midwife, getting me through all the pain and contractions, and granting peace.

After Russell came out, everyone exclaimed over his size. He is a large, 9 lb. baby with broad shoulders. He was thoroughly lodged and the doctors claimed that there was no way he would have come out. Even though I pushed for 4 hours, and he'd gotten to +1 to +1.5 station, his shoulders would not have passed through after his head. We are very grateful for our healthy child and praise God for his delivery. He was finally born at 5:06p so we definitely didn't have a baby by lunch! Even though it did not end as we intended, we would not go back and change anything. We don't regret our choice to pursue a VBAC without an epidural and feel that we gave it our all. In fact, if Russell had been a little smaller, the whole story would be a happily ending VBAC. However, God took care of us and we are grateful. Thank you to everyone for your prayers. And thank you most of all to God for our large, healthy boy.