Engku Amani Safiyya

the baby's name came to me one fine day. i was hardset to name the baby 'adila' and loved ariff's suggestion of 'safiyya' but i was not keen of similar sounding ends for the two names. i badly wanted to keep the first name but could not find a good second name to go along with it, except safiyya.

then one day, i came across 'amani' and loved the combination of the two names, along with their meanings - hope and pure. so hubby and i decided on the names and made a pact not to tell anyone to keep the element of surprise, and to keep the boys from babbling to their friends and teachers. everyone was using the name 'adila' when mentioning the baby, so yeah...good that noone knew.

after amani's arrival, i did not see her at all, let alone held her for the first 24 hours. amani was admitted to the special care nursery for observation. on the second day, i had the opportunity to visit her in the nursery occasionally and started to breastfeed her. that night, the nurse would call me every time she woke up for a feed. amani slept quite a bit and drank very little the fist couple of days.

an overnight observation became 3 days and just when i thought amani would be discharged, the nurses informed me that she had jaundice, although very low, and was to stay another night in the SCN to get phototherapy treatment. alhamdulillah, the jaundice was detected early and the pediatrician started her therapy early on, as she needed only a day.

finally, after 5 days at the SCN, amani was able to go home with us, in time for Hari Raya. her final diagnosed for her stay in the SCN was 'prematurity'. i'm actually surprised she was considered premature as abangbee akmal was not even though he born at 36weeks & 2 days, only 2 days difference between amani & akmal. with amani being considered premature, there's a long list of things to monitor and to look out for - her breathing, her jaundice, her eating, her activeness, her sleeping schedule.

initially i was very stressed. i was tired and not sure if i could handle the monitoring. i was afraid i'd miss something and it would affect amani. my eyes were on her 24 hours a day. when she slept, i looked at her chest, i felt for her breathing, i shook her a bit to see how she responded. but after 3 days, she finally seemed settled and that calmed me down tremendously.

amani looked like a newborn the first week, she felt like a newborn for the whole week. finally she had the baby look after being home 3-4 days. she looks fuller and rounder now, not just all skin and bones, as she initially did.

her feeding schedule was all over the place but we're getting there. she would wake up every hour, every half an hour something, particularly at night, and sleep for hours during the day. but for the past 2 days she'll be awake on time, every 3 hours, drinking a good 2oz of milk everytime.

amani's siblings are estatic with her arrival. kakak is very welcoming and is not at all disturbed by amani's cries at night. her brothers are excited, as excited as they were when amira was first brought home. they are fighting to hold her but with premature condition, we dont allow any of them to hold her.

we're taking it one day at a time with amani, hoping she'd be on better schedule as the day progressed and that she'd put on more weight, insyaAllah.