15 Jul 2016

Just memories

I have not written in a while. But actually a lot of things have happened - some so horrible I could not write about them. My lovely daughter Maisarah has passed away. She was just 28 - just a few weeks after her 28th birthday which we celebrated in a small way in Telok Gong, because she was working the next day and Neville was not around. Now when I recall the events that led to her death I realise that my heart was filled with anxiety and dread though I did not know why. I assumed it was because I was going for my umrah in late November and she was already at the late stage in pregnancy. But I remember my heart was filled with dread about leaving her alone for 10 days. I was sure something bad would happen. In the the end we decided to postpone our umrah till February, after Sarah's confinement. Never did I imagine that the dread I felt was going to be real and I would lose my darling baby girl. 
On 11 th December, a Friday , Sarah went for her usual checkup with Neville. The lady Doctor Dr Nor Azlina, said that her cervix was already open even though Sarah wasn't due yet for another 2 weeks. Sarah and the doctor agreed to check in at the hospital ( Mahkota Medical Centre) to prepare for her birth. She was so chirpy and excited as she went, calling out to me not to come too early. We went anyway, Repin and I at around 10 am but she was still in the birthing room. I hadn't realized that she was on a drip, but that drip was to induce labor. Why induce when she wasn't due yet? I didn' think to ask then. 

Repin and I went next door to Parkson to buy some essential baby stuff and went back to Mahkota to wait. We hAd a light lunch because we were not really hungry. At 12.05 I got a text from Neville saying she had given birth to a 3 kg baby girl and we Could visit her. I went in and she was lying there looking a bit pale and tired. I stroked her hair and kissed her and asked how she was. Tired she said. Then when Neville went out for a while she looked at me and said "it's so painful Ma". 
"I thought you asked for epidural? " I asked her. "I did, but it's still painful" 
Neville came in and said , " She lost a lot of blood Ma". I nodded thinking it was the usual amount that most women lost during pregnancy, not knowing that she had lost too much blood too fast and she still hadn't been given a blood transfusion. Now thinking of all this, I wonder if things would be different if she had been given a blood transfusion immediately. 



I went out and looked at the baby in the nursery. She looked so frail and tiny and the clothes looked too big on her. Then we went back to the waiting room and waited. Suddenly at 4pm Neville called to say that she had had a cardiac arrest. They had to do CPR on her and it seemed like hours. Then they took her to the operating theatre to check what was wrong. It seems they had to give her 10 pints of blood- she had lost so much that she went into cardiac shock. By 10 pm they came out to say that she was ok and she would be rested until the next day. The whole of Sunday she was unconscious, given a rest to recuperate, said the doctor. 
Early Monday morning she woke up, with a sore throat and still blurry from the drugs they had pumped into her. But she was up! I sat with her and just held her, unable to believe that We had almost lost her on Saturday. The whole of Monday she was fine. She talked and wanted to see the baby so the doctor agreed to transfer her to a bedroom in the ward. That whole day she held the baby in her arms, nursed her for the first time  and even took pictures with Neville. These were the last pictures they would take together. 
Looking at the picture who would have thought that she would slip quietly into a coma and leave us 10 days later?