Mom's first entry

Four weeks later.......actually make that 5 weeks later......

It all started on Saturday October 28 after 9pm. I fell asleep on the couch and woke up at around 11pm and decided to take a late hot shower. We attempted to go to bed around midnight and I felt another braxton hicks contraction (or so I thought). I told Dave that every time I felt these contractions, I should wake him up. This only lasted through one contraction. Needless to say, he fell asleep after the first go around.

In the mean time, I tried to sleep but ended up going to the washroom every 15 minutes. At 2am, I had diarrhea......I thought it was from the pizza that we had that night. Nope.....it turned out it was my body telling me that I was starting my labour!

I went back to bed and sat on the edge thinking "Holy smokes....how long can this continue! At this rate I'll never get any sleep!". Every time a contraction came I would cope with the "menstral cramp" feeling by shaking/moving my legs. The contractions starting coming every 10 minutes and the more painful it was, the harder I would shake/move my legs. This is when Dave bolted out of bed asking me if there was an earthquake!

We started to time the contractions and like clockwork, it came every 3-5 minutes. We started to time the contractions at 2:54am until 3am. On a scale of one to ten, I would say they were about a 3/4 At 3am, Dave decided that we should call the hospital. We called and the nurse asked a lot of questions to gauge how far along we were. She tried to get me to talk through a contraction and told us that we were probably in early labour and if we were comfortable, we should probably stay at home for a while. I asked her how much longer and she said about an hour.

After we hung up the phone, we both thought "wow....this is it....we are now in labour! Kurt was right! This baby will be born on Oct. 29!"
Over the next hour, between every contraction, we went up and down the elevator, packing the car with the hospital bag, car seat, throwing out garbage, cleaning out the fridge, and checked who could potentially win the baby pool (Congratulations Sam!).

I told Dave that I could probably drive and just pull over every time a contraction came on. He looked at me and thought I was nuts! I was serious at that time......until the next contraction came. On a scale of one-to-ten, I would say it was about a 4/5 now. I didn't drive :(

We leave for the hospital at 4am and checked in by 4:30am. That was the last time I was aware of what the time was. The car ride was only about 13 minutes but in that time span, there were about 5 contractions. They made the car ride seem like 45 minutes! AND it felt like we hit every pothole possible!

The porter took us over to the birthing suite. We were in the suite that was shown on the hospital tours that we took. Nice room, no windows though. It didn't really matter though. I think through most of the the labour I had my eyes closed!

We attempted to settle in and the perinatal nurses were extremely nice. Up until this point I dealt with the contractions by moving my legs or doing a "stationary walking motion". The nurse told me I had to sit in bed to take a baseline reading of the baby's heart rate. I was strapped to a fetal heart monitor and charting device for about 20 minutes. Not fun. Every time a contraction came, I would grip the edge of the bed and think.......hurry hurry hurry. I was only 4-5 cm dilated.

Just as they had taught us in the pre-natal class, Dave offered me water after every contraction. I didn't realize how dry my mouth would get because of all the breathing.

The nurse came back and looks at the chart. She said the baby was asleep so the reading wasn't quite accurate. I had to try to wake the baby and the nurse would check again later.

We decided to leave the room and walk about in the hall ways. I had an orange fruit popsicle.......not a good idea. I felt like throwing up afterwards! :(

There were empty emergency beds and hand rails in the hallway and all of them quickly became props for me to lean over during my contractions. Dave was at my side. Scale of 1-10, about a 5/6 at this time. How would I describe these pains.......very very bad menstrual cramps times 10!

We SLOWLY made our way back to the suite. We walked past the nurses' station and back to our room. The nurse stopped by and essentially scolded us (in a nice way) and told us not to walk so far b/c they may need to look for us.

For the remainder of the labour we were in the our suite. My new prop was the tv dinner table at the end of the bed, and Dave at my side. Even the nurse said she had never seen a patient deal with a contraction in the manner I had. She also asked me if I felt like I wanted to poop. At that time I thought "why would she asked my why I wanted to poop"......now I know. The sensation is not like peeing out a watermelon......it's more like pooping out a large watermelon! Nobody told me that!

By now, on a scale of 1-10, contractions were about a 7/8. With each contraction it got harder and harder to stand. I started feeling very tired. Dave was trying his best to calm me down and walk me through the contractions. He had told me twice that it was okay to take something for the pain. I swore if he had told me that one more time, I would have given him a black eye!

The nurse stopped by and asked me if I wanted laughing gas.......I said yes right away.

It wasn't easy to time the gas with the contractions. By the time I started sucking the gas, I was at the peak of my contraction and I would throw aside the mask. What we didn't realize was that my asthma would start up during labour! At the height of each contraction I was taking short breaths and gasping for air. It became difficult to take long deep breaths.........until the "mean nurse" came in. As Dave would put it, "she was exactly what Gev needed". She would TELL me to take long deep breaths.

Scale of 1-10, definitely a 8/9. I thought if it got any harder I wouldn't know how much longer. I was almost in tears!

By now, I didn't have the strength to stand. Instead I sat on the edge of the bed. Dave was no longer at my side. He was now sitting behind me and through each contraction, I could push off on him through every contraction. I think he made the mistake of offering his hand to me during a contraction. Every time a contraction came I would grip his hand/arm but made a conscious effort to NOT squeeze with all my might :)

Our keys words were now "tension"...when I wanted to sit up straight, or "slack"....when I wanted to recline. That wasn't planned. It was the closest thing I could think of at that time to communicate to him what I wanted with the least number of words :) In hindsight, it was pretty funny :) Dave was great!

Now I had the sensation to poop! I guess it was time. I was told to lie on the bed, which I hated, and every time a contraction came, I was supposed to bring my knees to my chest, which I couldn't do on my own. I had Dave on my left side and the nurse on my right side. Through each contraction they would push my knees to my chest and I would bring my chin to my chest.

By the time the OBG came (Dr. Yee?), I was "almost there". They could see the head but the baby was "still fairly high".

The rest was a bit of a blur. All I can remember are the following words:
"Try to poop"...." I can't poop....who will clean it up".
"Push again"....."push harder"
"Swollen perineum".... "very swollen"
"Did her water break?"....."Is that the water".... "Nope....THAT is the water breaking"
"Still high up"......
"How much longer do we have?"..."we still have about 20 minutes"..."we don't have 20 minutes"
"We have to use a vacuum"...."How long can we wait?".... "we can't wait"....."ok"

The last set of contractions I had I remember the nurse telling me to push again. I pushed and was told to push one more time. During that last push, I could feel something come out with the aid of the vacuum. I thought to myself "that's it, that's the head....and then the shoulders"....and a big sigh of relief.

They placed the baby girl in my arms and starting rubbing her with a white towel. I remember I could hardly open my eyes. When I did open them, I couldn't believe she had been in me for 9 months!

Dave had his camera and started taking pics. I remember thinking when is the next contraction to expel the placenta....will it be as bad?

It wasn't that bad at all. Out came the placenta, Daddy cut the cord, nurse took Sydney to clean her and bundle her up, I kept inhaling the gas b/c Dr. Yee had half an hour of stitching to do on me! Sydney "almost" tore me from end to end.

The umbilical cord was thinner than usual and had 2 large clots in it. Not good if the pushing had continued.

All in all it was quite the experience. Can't say I've ever gone through that type of pain before. Kudos to Daddy Dave for holding out just as long as I did and not fainting at the sight of my insides gushing out between my legs!

Here is to a new chapter in our lives!
Welcome to the world Sydney Gar-Wai Huynh Le! We love you :)

November 25: Visitor recap

This will be mommy's first entry into the blog. Dad's been going to work, and dad has to admit that his new friends at work have been very empathetic and understanding. I've been very fortunate that his boss has been very understanding about my new schedule, that Bridget has been able to pick up some of the slack, and that my Ontario Plan teammates have been running with the project (which is and astounding +65% vyago and filled 88% of the target of the fiscal year incremental target indexing at 185 to date... woo-hoo!).

Daddy is totally amazed at how much Sydney changes everyday. As I don't get to spend every day with her (my primarily weekday role is diaper duty -and she saves the big messy dumps for me - reading and music time person, and soothing nightguard - I get the 3:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. shift).

Before I pass it off, Ian and Katherine are in this weekend. The reality of everything hit me on a different level hit me when I saw Ian holding Sydney. Ian, my younger brother - my peer - my best friend, holding my little girl. It was so crazy. I've seen Ian hold a lot of babies before, but to see him holding my kid was amazing. So frigtheningly real (that's a reference more to his carrying technique and over-stimulation one-sided discussions with Sydney ...jk). Many thanks to our Popo for visiting us for three weeks. We wouldn't have survived without you, you are an amazing person and Sydney is very fortunate to have you as a grandmother. We'll always remind her that you were here for the first three weeks of her life, which was truly a uniquely magical time to be here. Thank-you for sharing that time with us.

Speaking of thanks, thanks again to Ba Ngoai and Christina for visiting as well. A couple of pictures from the past few weeks including the bun bo hue & pho ga spread that Ba Ngoai cooked up (PLEASE COME AGAIN!) and Christina's designer Vans shoes. Over to mom.

No sleep, but so cute: November 21

Even after being sleep deprived and getting use to two 3-hours sleep segments at night, getting woken by little-whimpering-grunting noises, and sleep-walking to the bassinet... I can't help but smile when I pick up Sydney and watch her fall back to sleep in my arms. Such an angel... our little cutie, our little Sydney.

Sydney weekend update: November 19

This weekend was Sydney's first shopping weekend. What an experience.

Mom, dad, and Popo suited up Sydney for a Saturday morning shopping adventure to Toys R Us and TJ Kiddie's. Wow, it sounds like so little but it was such an adventure. We put Sydney into her car seat, and the day started out pretty smooth. We timed it so that we left after her mid-morning feed at 10:30 a.m. so she was a pretty happy camper when we left (as you can see).

Sydney fell asleep en route to Toys R Us, so her first trip to Toys R Us officially consisted of her sleep in her stroller the whole time. So while she slept, the three of us had fun shopping for books and toys! :)

Then the big mistake happened. We snuck in a shopping trip to T&T before venturing off to TJ Kiddie's. By the time we were heading to TJ's it was already 12:30 p.m. That's when Sydney's usually feeding. Sydney got up 5 minutes into the car ride and was HUNGRY! She cried to whole way to the TJ's parking lot. After a feed from mommy, we took her inside. We tried not to move around too much and test drove a few gliders. But because of her crying before (and the air in her stomach) and her eating so quickly in the car, she was so gassy and burpy that she spit up three times in the store. Man, there is nothing worse than not knowing what to do when there's something wrong with your kid. Rookie mistakes!


After we picked up some accessories, it was off to home. Whew! Nice to be back on safe turf. Sydney slept pretty well the rest of the day. (check her out in the bassinet from Susan T).

Sunday was a quiet day at home. No outside walk yet for the little girl, that will happen this week. Instead we all hung out at home (watching football). Daddy's investment in an IPOD is slowly paying off as Sydney's easy listening music that relaxs her is Emily Haines (thanks Auntie Chris), Jack Johnson (how is it that every girl in the world loves him?), and City & Colour. Not big James Blunt fan surprisingly, but she loves "hand-dancing" to the Beatles and Elvis.

Oh, and Sydney's really getting into books. It's so funny. She's captivated by high contrast inages. It's so much fun reading her books. I read her three pages from Baby Whisperer to (the Harvard Business Reviews and Fast Company articles can't be too far behind).

Lots of lessons learned this weekend about scheduling and travel. But there's something to be said for those magical moments like when she's reading along with us, or smiling to a Beatles tune, or when she has a starteled look on her face from when mommy's driving and hits the gas a little to hard (which is often).

Sydney: November 11

Another update on Sydney:




We’ve enjoyed having Sydney’s Popo (Chinese grandmother) in town for a week. She’s on Vancouver Island now, taking a mini-vacation from us on her three week stay in Vancouver. This weekend, Sydney’s great-grandmother and her Auntie Christina are in town.

It’s been great having family around. We’ve quickly learned that having people over for quick visits turns out to be nightmarish (Bren and Kerrie, sorry that you were the guinea pigs). We’ve learned that Sydney really needs her quiet feeding and “easy-stimulation” time on the weeknights. Unfortunately, that means that every time that daddy reads her a book, she falls asleep (verifying what Sara, Gillian, Alison, and all my old soccer players made be realize… my talks put people to sleep).

Mom’s doing great, other than adopting Yvonne’s mindset of being “cow-like”… literally. Mom is a natural at giving baths to Sydney and product testing a variety of baby gear (Ben & Kim, thanks for the Baby Bjorn… we’re only testing it and haven’t actually used it as you’ll see). She sends her best to the UBC gang, though she’s wondering why she can’t log-in remotely anymore (hehheh).

More pictures including:
- Sydney with her visiting relatives, including Christina changing diapers!
- A little Sydney nudity… WARNING cute baby naked.
- Some new facial expressions
- Highlights from Sydney’s first bath (she actually does enjoy her baths…)

David, Geneva, and Sydney.

Sydney Update: November 1, 2006

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the well wishes. Sydney and mom are doing great. This is literally the first break that we’ve gotten… man, I just can’t believe how demanding the first few days have been (apologies to Bridget, Doug and Kara for not checking work at all…). Sydney came home yesterday, an interesting drive home on Halloween. Her weight dropped only 7% so she’s in good shape, and Geve’s milk is just (I mean just) starting to come in so the feedings are increasing in frequency. That’s good news for Sydney and bad news for the parents. Mom’s doing well. She still says that she feels like she’s just gotten off of a horse-riding marathon, but she’s in good spirits and Sydney’s already following the sound of her voice.

So, two requests to fulfill. First, Sydney’s full name is officially: Sydney Gar-Wai Huynh Le.

Sydney was a name that we had on a short list for a girl. After dad’s overanalyzing of names, we went with Sydney for a few reasons (warning: these are very dad-centric points :):
1. A Special Relationship to mom/ Geneva’s name. I really wanted a relationship to Geneva’s name. Over the years, the two things that standout to me that make Geneva’s name special are what people have said about it and a how to spell it. In the time I have known Geneva, I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say to her, “Geneva, that’s a beautiful name.” As well, the other thing that I’ve heard a lot of people ask her is “how do you spell you name”, to which Geve always replies, “like the city.” I love how Geneva and Sydney share so many things in common. Of course, they are both named after great cities of the world and are names that rare (i.e. not like Paris re: Hilton or Black or Singer) but not weirdly unique (i.e. Apple, Peekaboo). And being a numbers freak, there’s an interesting factoid: if you count “y” as a vowel (and it’s half a vowel), Geneva and Sydney are a) both six letters long b) have three vowels each, including one pair (Es and Ys) and one single (A and E), c) have one “N”. Plus, the name has a “D” in it which is great for daddy David. Above all, it was important to me that Sydney’s name have a special relationship with her mom’s name, without it being transparent or unimaginatively obviously. The highlight of my life that I’m waiting for is when the two of out together one day and for some reason someone asks them both for their names and how to spell them, and Sydney says “you spell them both like the cities.” Yeah tacky, but really aren’t I totally tacky all the time?

2. Personality flexibility/ Christina’s name. Obviously, it’s hard for me not to think of Christina when I look at Sydney. Christina in so many ways has prepared me for fatherhood over the last 21 years. Moreover, it was those nights babysitting Christina at home, with Geve when we were younger, that really allowed me to get a glimpse of the great mom Geve would be. One of the best things about Christina’s name is the flexibility of the name. I loved how when she was younger, her name didn’t pigeon hole her personality development. When she grew up as a tomboy (remember the days of baseball cap-hat hair?) she could go by just “Chris”. But when mom wanted to dress her up, she could be “Christina or Tina”. We like the idea that “Sydney” or “Syd” gives our daughter flexibility to develop different sides of her personality. And Chris, you know that you are one of the most important people in our lives, and we really wanted one of her older aunts to have a special bond with her.

3. Coincidence with Ben. Ben, to me and Geneva you are truly a brother-from-another-mother. It’s great that Sydney will know that she has a special link to you and your family, especially Elia and Kim. Even though we don’t live close by, I know that we’ll always be best friends. This only cements that. (Syd, Ben's middle name is Sidney like Crosby, from his dad who has the same name).

4. Yes, Alias. Ok Jono, it’s true. Everyone knows that Geve and I were huge Alias fans. But it wasn’t until a series of horrible movies that I realized that I really didn’t like Jennifer Garner (re: Electra, Daredevil, 13 Going on 30), but I loved the Sydney Bristow character from Alias. However, I have no aspirations for our Sydney to be a secret agent (though dad’s secret super-hero childhood training techniques could bare resemblance to Jack Bristow).

5. Geneva liked it (really, point 5 is all that matters).

Gar-Wai is Chinese, and “wai” means “wisdom.” Gar” is the pre-fix that Geneva’s mom and dad used for all of their children’s Chinese names. Obviously, being the first grandchild, we wanted to ensure that a part of the Chinese family name continued on through Sydney. And of course, it was important to have a Chinese name that tied into Kirby and Sabrina. Gar-Wai was a name chosen by Po-po & Gong-gong to respect family lineage, and Sydney will always know that.

Huynh is one of my middle names and my mother’s maiden name. Geneva was the one that ultimately said that we should include a Vietnamese name. The selection of Huynh was pay respect to not only my mother’s entire side of the family, but also to 1) my mom who was an oldest sister of five and 2) my Uncle Lam who was the single male of the family. Unc, you were the older brother that I never had, and I hope to be as good a dad as you are. And Jade, I hope that Sydney learns from you how to be a great oldest sister as well (you’re the only oldest sister on my mom’s side of the family). And of course, Huynh means “yellow” which is perfect for Uncle Ian, the only person in the world whose favourite colour is yellow (hey Kath, this is the one time that’s ok). Sorry dad, no “Long Dang” this time for a middle name.

Well, that was long-winded but accurate and hopefully interesting. The second request is easier: more pictures please (including ones with dad taken by mom).

Love you all,
Sydney, Geneva & David

P.S. Geneva’s email is gevandave@hotmail.com. It’s best to email there if you are trying to reach us in the future.

P.P.S. Special thanks to Yvonne & Sonny, and Rob & Tanya for visiting in the hospital and being great about bringing food and knowing how long to stay (i.e. not too long but long enough).

P.P.P.S. Sydney would like to thank Ong Ba Noi for the car seat (see pics). Send food with Po-po. :)

It's a girl: October 29, 2006

Baby girl Sydney Le was born at 8:34 a.m. the morning of Sunday, October 29, 2006 in the year of the dog, the same sign as her grandpa Ong Noi.


Sydney weighed in at 7 lbs 4 oz, a new record for my side of the family. That means that the winner of the baby G&D baby pool is Sam guessing a girl on Oct 27th. The money was definitely not on a girl being early. We’ll figure out a special bonus prize for Kurt who kept telling Geneva that the day was definitely going to be October 29th and was only 2 oz. off on the weight (but guessed boy). In fact, Jade – Katherine – Austin/ Cindy – Uncle Ky – and Grandma Popo were all on the girl team and all within 3 oz or less. Btw, Popo… thanks for the blanket, the kid loves it.

Mommy is doing great. After falling asleep Saturday night on the couch to what she said was a boring Oilers game (though Pierre was probably more estatic than any of us true Oiler fans since he has Roloson in the pool), mommy got up around midnight to have a shower (a rare occurrence). Mom and dad went to sleep shortly after. Dad got up at 2:00 a.m. to be awoken by the bed shaking. Being the completely out of tune person that he is, I naturally thought “dear God, it’s a friggin’ earthquake!” After clearing the drowsey cobwebs, I realized that Geneva was sitting on the bed shaking her legs and saying “if this is false labour pains, I don’t think I can do a week of it.” We timed the contractions and they ended up being 3 to 4 minutes apart… and then we were off to the hospital.

To what will be no surprise to the people that know her, mom went through the 8 hours of labour and the 45 minutes of real active labour (yes, there is a BIG difference) WITHOUT any painkillers. That’s not to say there was no pain, because I figure that labour is the equivalent of about 20 shoulder dislocations and separations all at the same time. Mom of course experimented with the laughing gas (more afterwards get for kicks) and I will be sending a special “Geneva drugged up on laughing gas” video clip to the UBC folks in a few weeks. Jk. Seriously though, mom is doing great and she’s natural at motherhood even though she’s too hard on herself to realize it just yet.


Mom and dad want to send our thanks to all of you for the well wishes. You’ve been a great part of our lives, and we look forward to the day that Sydney meets you all.

These are Sydney’s first pics (and Geve’s last picture prego on Oct 28th). It’s amazing how much Sydney changes every hour. And to the question that a few friends have asked (David M. and Dave V.), the reality of everything hit me when Geneva had just delivered. The nurse was checking Geve and I was holding Sydney in my arms and it was just the two of us and she just opened her one of her eyes and smiled. I realized exactly what you guys were talking to me about. Man, there is nothing in the world like this.