What a ride - from womb to world. Contractions begin Thursday afternoon. The only time I mention 'pain' in the office is the day before delivery, prompting a dear colleague to remark that this is the only time that I am acting pregnant. The entire 9mths, I am zipping up and down the staircase multiple times a day with easy, energetic and with no morn-sickness.
As the day wears on, the pain very gradually escalates and so I leave for home exactly at 5pm. The given due date is Jan 10, 2008 - still three weeks away. I assume its its 'false' labour. The pain is not yet bothersome enough for me to want to go to hospital. Its starts to get noticeable after 10pm. I suspect labour but know enough, instinctively it seems, that contractions are not close enough yet. I don't want to go to hospital and be sent back and told to come back in the morning or be given meds. I knew baby was on the way, but there was still a bit of time. Daddy's in-between waking and sleeping, coz I am constantly squeezing him to contain the pain from the 'regularising' contractions. Finally, 5am, I call the gynae and 'tell' him that I am heading to the hospital. He tells me he thinks I am in labour. :) Yeah, I figured!? We get in a cab and head off at 6am.
Everything is hunky-dory. They hook-me up to a machine and tell me the contractions are 'too' mild, but they figure I can stay around and see how it goes. Its 7am and more pain is now felt, prompting me to ask what time the anaesthesiologists is getting there. He comes at 8am, I'm told. I get an enema and told to go potty. That's where the real pain hit - I literally lost my voice from the sheer power of the contraction. The toilet spins and I drop my head into the sink to hold on. Wobble my way out of the bathroom and only manage a whisper to say 'pain' before clambering into the bed. Given a nitrous-oxide (I think). Takes away 25% of the pain aparently. Haah!! I was nodding off, but believe the pain is PAINFUL! I grab daddy's wrist and am 'crushing it' as if trying to transfer the pain.
Cursing under my breath that the doc's not there yet and I had to go through pain waiting for him!! He finally gets there and from then on its smooth sailing and I begin to enjoy 'labour'. I move to the delivery room and daddy knocks off in the sofa...snoring. I twiddle my thumbs for the next 5 hours of so waiting to dilate.
HMummy and daddy got to the hospital just after 6am and she was admitted immediately. She was in labour. Mummy was in dreadful pain initially. She lost her voice and was breathing heavily despite inhaling nitrous oxide given to her. Her doctor and the aneasthesiologist had yet to arrive.
Mummy had low pain threshold - poor mummy.
Mummy was desperately in need for an epidural. She squeezed acha's hand so tight every time the contraction came on - and was on the verge of passing out. The aneasthesiologist finally arrived - punctured a hole in the spine, put a tiny tube in, and voila, within minutes the pain went puff...gone...and all was well again.
Thank god for the epidural...Then, mummy's doctor shortly arrived and began to work on mummy's nether region. She was given an augmentation to help with the dilation and contraction since the doctor said that the contraction was weak...WEAK!
Mummy was wheeled into the labout room to wait for her to dilate. Mummy was wheeled into the labout room to wait for her to dilate.
We waited until 2pm before mummy was dilated to 10cm and then the nurses and acha prepped mummy for pushing me out at each contraction. She has to place her each legs against acha and the nurses hips and push on them as hard as she could. Mummy took a deep breatha and pushed with all the might until the top of my head could be seen in the birth canal. The nurse showed mummy the mirror where she could could see saw the topn of my head full of shiny black hair. Since mummy couldn't feel contractions she had to be encouraged to push hard. She pushed for two hours before Dr Loke delivered me using forcerps. I screamed at the top of my lungs when I felt the cold of the room on my newborn's skin. Acha videotaped my being weighed at 2.86kg while mummy was being stitched up. I was healthy, though my eyes were really small, and so mummy was doing well.
Mummy said she had some 22 stitches in all and was soon rolled out of the labour room and into the ward.
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