The Labour of Love-April 10, 2012

My baby is 6-week old today. I am stealing some time here, though seriously deprive of sleep, to share the birth experience that happened on April 10, 2012.

April 9 (Mon), 7:45am.

Woke up and experienced a warm and wet feeling down there. Decided to check it out in the washroom. Upon stepping down from the bed, I felt a flow of lukewarm sensation dripping down. Well, there was some bloody show on my underwear, and obviously the amniotic sack had just broken. I calmly stopped my hubby, who was then just about to step out from the house for work. "Darling, I think today is the day." I could feel that he instantly became panic because my EDD was actually another 15 days away, and we had just celebrated his birthday yesterday. Honestly, this was a bit out of our expectation, but the date for natural birth, unlike C-section, is never certain.

April 9 (Mon), 8:00am.

I quickly took a shower and washed my hair while hubby was busy sterilizing my breast pump and milk storage bottles in the kitchen (Well, he always wanted to do this, but keep procrastinating, haha....finally he has no more excuse to delay it).

April 9 (Mon), 8:20am.

I called up Dr. Paul and told him my situation. Confidently, he told me the baby would arrive either today evening or tomorrow morning, he asked me to take a shower and packed my bag, then report myself to the labour ward within the next 2 hours.

April 9 (Mon), 10am.

After making a few phone calls and last minute emailing to hand over my work stuffs, we made our way to Pantai Medical Centre KL.

April 9 (Mon), 10:30am.

Arrived at the hospital, went directly to the labour ward at Level 2. I was admitted to the labour room and the nurse checked my contraction level and baby's heart beat. I did not feel any contraction yet, but the nurse told me my cervix's was already opened about 3-4 cm. With the normal rate of 1cm per hour (10cm for active labour), my baby was estimated to arrive in the evening. I was not comfortable to be stripped on the bed all the time ( to allow the machine to constantly monitor the baby's heart beat and my contraction level).

The red reading indicates the baby's heart beat, the green indicates the contraction level.

I was also not used to not wearing any underwear, while having to use my thighs to hold the maxi sanitary pad between my legs to absorb the leaking amniotic water. The nurse also gave me some medicine to clear my bowel.

Another thing that bothered me was the paper-like low quality blue robe that I was asked to put on. The strings that tied the robe together were so fragile, where all of them broke just after 1-2 hour of wearing it. I tried to ignore all the discomfort and told myself to focus on the joy of receiving my baby soon. Well, as you can tell, I totally under estimated the pain of labour.

April 9 (Mon), 1pm.

Dr. Paul paid me a visit in the labour room to check my condition. The cervix’s opening maintained at 3-4cm.  The contraction was still mild. Dr. Paul suggested to induce the labour process as the risk of infection would increase, the longer the water bag had burst. However, he decided not to do it as he noticed that there was quite a great amount of water sipping out, so I should be able to feel the contraction soon and the active labour would soon come along. What a relief to me, as I have heard stories about how painful induced labour can be.  I was then injected with antibiotic to prevent any infection.

April 9 (Mon), 7pm.

The past 6 hours, hubby and I was enjoying ourselves, joking and taking photographs of me posing in my almost disintegrating paper robe, while the nurse performed a few times of cervix check, every 2 hours to be exact ( I hate the feeling of fingers poking deeply into my vagina!), but there was no improvement on the opening.  However, the contraction started to kick in soon enough. Initially, the pain was just like period pain, totally bearable.

April 9 (Mon), 9pm.

Dr. Paul, who had changed into a green Polo-T came again to check on me. The contraction started to get more serious. The smile on my face had gone. I couldn’t believe that my cervix only opened for another centimeter after so many hours. It was only 4-5 cm, I still have 5 cm to go! Dr. Paul asked me to catch some sleep (how? I am having serious menstrual-like pain!) and he would come back at 6am to receive my baby. Huh? 6am, I doubted I could bear the pain until 6am! But, I have no choice. The word ‘ Epidural’ flashes across my mind, but the stubbornness in me said I could bear the pain. Minzy, you are strong and brave! huh? huh! huh?

April 10 (Tue), 12am.

Pain, pain, pain….am I going to pass motion or what? There was a strong force pushing my bowel, something felt like about to burst out. Hubby called the nurse to check on me. As I am not sure whether it was still safe for the baby to inject epidural by then (because the labour felt so near! Yet, so far?) I was certain I would not take any anesthetic that would harm the baby. The nurse suggested another type of sedation injection (forgot the name) that was safe, which also said to be able to cut down the pain by 50%. After being persuaded by my hubby, I decided to take the injection. Well, the injection made me feel very drowsy and weak ( and I can tell you now, the sedation injection doesn’t work to cut down the pain at all!), I felt like I was sinking, into another dimension of the world. I have no word to describe the feeling……I prayed and prayed, I didn’t want to ‘sink’ anymore!

April 10 (Tue), 2:30am.

The contraction that happened every 90 seconds was so tremendous, it felt like there was a kind of massive force, trying to push something out from my ass! With one hand holding onto my hubby’s arm and one more grabbing on the steel bar at the side of the bed, I felt like my body was about to be torn into pieces. I couldn’t bear it anymore. A senior Indian midwife came in to check my condition and told me I was doing great as my cervix has opened 8cm, all the sudden! She immediately contacted Dr. Paul and another nurse quickly set up all the necessary equipment for the delivery process.

April 10 (Tue), 2:50am.

Dr. Paul stepped into the labour room in an orange Polo-T. (I have always wondered how these doctors managed to look so fresh and well-groomed this early in the morning?) By monitoring my contraction interval on the machine, the midwife and the nurse guided me to push. The Indian midwife keep ‘scolding’ me that I wasn’t doing it correctly! Come on! This was my first child, how on earth would I know how to push before hand? Can you be more considerate or at least be more patient? Both Dr. Paul and the other Malay nurse were ‘kinder’ as they use a lot of words of encouragement throughout the process.

April 10 (Tue), 3am.

After a few pushes, Dr. Paul seriously told my hubby that the baby’s head could already be seen but his heart rate was dropping with every interval of my contraction. Hence, he would perform vacuum delivery if the baby was still not out after another 2 rounds of push. Eventually, vacuum aid came in to ‘suck’ out the baby, reason being his shoulder was strapped by the umbilical cord. The cord formed a ‘safety belt’ to prevent the baby from being pushed out, no matter how hard I tried. At 3:06 am, I heard loud cries, yes the baby was out and the tremendous pain that I had experienced for many hours suddenly subsided! Our angel had finally arrived!

P/S: I totally under estimated the pain of natural birth. I have very high tolerance for pain, thus was too innocent to actually believe many people who told me that delivering a baby is as easy as laying an egg! No, it is not true at all, unless you are delivering your 10^th baby! Anyway, it was a great experience and I am proud that I survive it. I will still opt for natural birth if I ever get pregnant again due to its speedy recovery after birth, but definitely ‘epidural’ would be an option.



Jaden's favourite activity: Sleeping





Again, sleeping.





Wrapped in the towel, after bath.