Thursday and Friday was spent once again at the hospital.

Yesterday (Thursday), we saw the doctor as part of UMMC’s admission procedure. In order to deliver at UMMC, we are supposed to register, attend a course (was told it is mandatory for all government hospitals to have this breastfeeding course for all mum-to-be) and then see the doctor (officially since Monday’s appointment was more as a 2nd opinion). We had originally wanted to use Serdang Hospital like what Dean and Adeline did with baby Shuyin. Serdang Hospital is one of the newer hospitals and basically everything there is ‘new’. But because of the complication that we are now facing, both Mrs Tai and myself have decided we will just have the baby delivered in UMMC. We understand they will have pediatric surgeons on standby during delivery.

After the course (dad-to-be are encouraged to sit in as well to provide morale support to the wife), we waited for our turn to see the doctor. As ours was a special case and we had to see one particular doctor, we faced this incident where we were told its our turn. When we went into the room, we noticed it was another doctor. After a quick check and after asking us a few questions, the doctor realised that we are a ’special case’ and told us to wait again outside for the correct doctor. There are a few doctors on duty at UMMC’s maternal clinic.

After another 10-20mins of waiting, we finally got to see the doctor. She basically explained to us again and asked if we have any further questions regarding our baby’s condition (see The ultrasound scan and The follow up scan. She then used to Doppler to listen to our baby’s heartbeat… Words cannot describe how it feels when you actually can hear your baby’s heartbeat. Seeing her images on the ultrasound scan is one thing, but hearing our baby is a totally different feeling. I felt so happy and I just can’t wait for our baby to finally come into this world.

The doctor also wrote us a referral letter for us to meet up with the pediatric surgeon on Friday (today). And before we left, she told us that she will arrange for us to meet up with a Neonatal Specialist before the baby is delivered - possibly during one of the next ultrasound scan sessions.

So this morning, we were off to the hospital again early in the morning. We had been told to come early as we had no prior appointment with the surgeon and would be considered as ‘walk-in’ patients. However, our doctor was nice enough to write the word URGENT on our letter yesterday.

It was about 2 hours wait before it was finally our turn to see the surgeon. Basically he acted more as a counselor for the two of us. He explained the situation again and even drew a diagram for us to understand further. He also explained his role - the surgeons will only come once the baby has been delivered. He also briefly explained to us what they will do during the corrective surgery. According to him, the corrective surgery is done after the baby is stabilised, which is usually on the third day. The only thing is that during the three days, baby will be on IV drips. No food (milk) until after the surgery. Even then, it will be quite a while after the surgery before the baby is allowed to take food (milk). I guess our baby will not get to taste food until the second or even third week.