{"id":1479,"date":"2016-08-30T17:12:16","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T00:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/?p=1479"},"modified":"2016-08-30T17:21:49","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T00:21:49","slug":"birth-of-changi-the-cute-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/birth-of-changi-the-cute-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"Birth of Changi, the cute elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was supposed to go to dinner with my friends after climbing at Planet Granite. It was around 9pm on the 23rd of August, my 28th birthday. All afternoon I had been checking my phone at every moment I got, for S called me earlier that day saying “It looks like A’s going to give birth either today or tomorrow!” And I was supposed to take pictures of the event. No one was expecting it this early; she was actually due in mid-September.<\/p>\n

In the brief minutes that I was distracted from checking my phone, Szilard had texted me again: “Come now! She’s giving birth!” The unread text sat on the screen of my iphone 6, as I was climbing a very tricky yellow-handhold 11B in the corner of the gym. The distraction continued in the form of friends crowding me in a circle, singing happy birthday in the gym during probably the most crowded time of day, as I pretended that I was also singing for someone while turning bright red. Of course they yelled my name really loud, just as A was probably screaming in effort to push a new life into this world.<\/p>\n

My friends presented the “cake” aka a bunch of cut fruit in a cake tin, as the nurses placed an equally if not more sweet baby girl into A’s arms. My present had all sorts of fun things in it: figs cut in half, spears of pineapple, bright red strawberries, soft melon, and strips of dried coconut topped with unlit candles. In the same moment, S was gaping with awe at the soft-cheeked baby Changi with a bright red face, struggling to open her brand new eyes to this new world she rushed into. Was it really a good idea she must be thinking to herself? Unsure, she wails as she is\u00a0placed on her mother’s bosom.<\/p>\n

Mostly through my “slice” of the fruit-cake, I casually check my phone, and nearly choke on a piece of coconut. “Guys, I have to go, dinner is cancelled, my niece was just born!” After that, everything happened so fast: I throw my climbing stuff into my bag, jump into D’s car and we race to the curtly instructed location: West Pavilion, Purple Elevator. D drops me off, and I rush in the entrance, past the security guard. Having no idea where I’m going, I just feel my way through the hospital, looking for signs: purple elevator… purple elevator. As if I was being led, the elevator revealed itself in a corner; anyone watching me would probably have thought I knew exactly where I was going. Come on come on… open faster – I thought willing the sliding doors to open already.<\/p>\n

Reaching the floor, everything looked calm, but I was anything but that. The lady at the front desk was my last obstacle. “I’m here to photograph the new child, last name is Suto,” I tell her. “Sorry, I can’t hear you, can you come closer?” Ahhhhhhh!<\/em> But I put on a placid face. “The mother’s name is Arty.. I mean Tatawan Suto.” I say more clearly. The lady bobs her head, pulling out a sharpie as I’m tapping my foot impatiently\u00a0and slowly writes on a sticker already marked with the date Aug 23: Suite 324. She points to a double doors, hands me the sticker-badge, and I’m on my way through the labyrinth of hallways and adjoining rooms, the 3 by 5 foot white poster board I brought floating like a sail in my right hand. I wanted to be prepped with a light reflector in case the lighting was awful.<\/p>\n

I finally reach the door and knock. For a split second I thought I had the wrong door, as a low-pitched lady voice mumbles, “what?..” Then I hear my cousin S’s masculine voice as the nurse opens the door.\u00a0He pushes past her and grabs the door wide open, with an even wider grin. I have never seen him happier, and I have known this guy for 25 years.<\/p>\n

Let these pictures tell the rest of the story…<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A set of meaningful quotes from the first two hours after Changi’s traumatic entrance into our world:<\/p>\n

S: “I’m in love” [while holding a sleeping Changi in his arms]
\nA: “Nothing on my calendar matters anymore…”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was supposed to go to dinner with my friends after climbing at Planet Granite. It was around 9pm on the 23rd of August, my 28th birthday. All afternoon I had been checking my phone at every moment I got, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[200,240,239,100,152,120,79,241,98,242],"class_list":["post-1479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","tag-200","tag-baby","tag-birth","tag-birthday","tag-climbing","tag-magyar","tag-photography","tag-pictures","tag-portland","tag-thai","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1482,"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions\/1482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ildikototh.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}