got up at 9am dying to pee. relieved myself & found streaks of blood in the toilet bowl. heart skipped a beat. the husband called the gynea who asked us to come in for a checkup at the clinic. the husband made me a tuna sandwich for breakfast. showered, washed my hair etc & went to the clinic. gynea said i’m having my “pink show” & am already in pre-labor. told me to go & do whatever i wanted –shop, walkabout, eat whatever, clean the house etc. she expected me to go into labor only around midnight or on sunday morning or at the latest by monday. before we left, i told the gynea that i wanted to have the epidural & she said “we’ll see. i’ll let you go through some of the pains first before we administer the epidural.”
so we went to the curve & checked out paddington’s house of pancakes as recommended by some friends. didn’t quite enjoy myself as i was afraid my water bag would burst while i was walking about in a shopping mall so we left after brunch. we got the cleaners to come at 2pm to give the apartment a good cleaning before baby came & i thought that it would be good for me to do some light exercises so i joined in the cleaning as well. the husband made up our bed & the baby’s cot while i got the baby toiletries ready.
in the evening, the husband went for a swim & since neither of us wanted me to stay in the apartment by myself, i decided to walk around the pool while he swam.
we had planned to have some steak for dinner & durians too despite the husband having a total aversion to the fruit hehehe. but in the end i was too tired to go out. the mil came, at the husbands request, with some chicken wings for supper & she spent the night. his justification to me was “since we don’t know what to expect, its best that we have her around.”
we went to bed around midnight.
sunday 13july2008
i felt the first contraction at 223am. it wasnt excruciating but i felt it enough to wake me up. funny how i just knew to start timing myself. i didn’t even know what contractions felt like. the books say that “you’ll know when its time.” i guess they weren’t kidding. ok so for the benefit of other first time moms, to me, it felt like painful period cramps. so, i got up & got a pen & notebook & started jotting down the times the contractions came. told the husband i’ll monitor till contraction no. 10 & will wake him up then. when no. 10 came i texted my gynea who told me to go on to the hospital. i woke the husband up & took my shower & we left at about 530am. on the way to the hospital there was a police roadblock. the husband said to the police officer “bang, tengah mengandung bang.” muahahha… of course he meant to say “bersalin”. so farnee. in the car i decided to have a breakfast of 2 slices of raisin bread. just in case i wasn’t allowed to eat later.
we checked into the hospital at 6am & i was wheelchair-ed to the delivery ward. my mil was with me while the husband parked the car. it is a very very awkward moment having to don on a butt-revealing hospital robe in front of the mil ok. i mean, the husband asked her over the night before cos he said we wouldnt know what to expect. ok fair enough. but in the delivery room?? you’ve gotta be joking man. i mean i love my mil ok but i don’t really want to have her there while i kangkang my legs out & scream profanities at the husband right. just in case that happens lah. so i told the husband my feelings & he said that he doesn’t think she will be there while i deliver. lovely.
while the husband & the mil went to the cafeteria for breakfast, the gynea came to break my water bag at 805am & the nurse gave me an enema which looks like some kind of water in a bottle with a long thin nozzle which they shove up your behind & squirt into your bowels. luckily i asked the nurse how long it would take till i felt like pooping. she said almost immediately. even luckier was that i had enough sense to prop myself up earlier just in case i suddenly felt like letting go & tak sempat sampai the bathroom haha. so yes, as soon as i managed to swing my legs over to the side of the bed (which was quite difficult seeing as i had this bump in front of me as well as contractions), the urge came so i had to rush to the bathroom, with my legs tightly clenched hehehe. in my rush, i forgot to grab my towel. i had disrobed & was washing up when i heard the husband come into the delivery room moments later. i asked for my towel & opened the bathroom door with the hospital robe held up to cover my front but not my back. & guess what… my mil was the one who handed me the towel & since there was a big mirror behind me, she could’ve easily seen my naked back. luckily she wasn’t looking. hehehe… malu lah… anyways, she went home before everything really started so i was saved from further embarrassment.
i managed to make a few calls to consult some friends & my sister on whether to go ahead with the epidural. in the end, i decided against it. a nurse came in somewhere between 9am & 10am & told us that my contractions were coming a bit slow & that i wasn’t dilating fast enough & that the doctor decided to induce me. omg… within seconds of the drips entering my blood stream i was crying my eyes out. the pain!! it was so painful the nurses could hear my crying from outside the room. i remember one of the nurses coming in & giving me a jab in the butt which made me sleep in between contractions but didn’t take the contraction pains away. i remember saying “oww oww oww… so pain so pain!!” to the husband. i remember the nurse coming in again & setting up the gas mask for me. the husband was holding it to my face every time i needed it. later he told me that i seemed so angry with him & wouldn’t talk to him for 2 hours hehehe. so he sat beside me for 2 hours holding my hand but i didn’t talk to him, the poor man. he tried inhaling the gas twice just to see what the effect was like for me. ok so these were the pain relief i opted for instead of the epidural:
opioid analgesia - this is an injection given at the buttocks by the nurse. it doesn't remove all the labour pains, but still gives satisfactory relief to most mothers. nausea and vomiting may occur in some patients, who will be given anti vomiting medicines.
inhalation analgesia - the most common is entonox, a mixture of 50% oxygen and 50% nitrous oxide. it is usually used toward the end of the first stage of labour. you are required to fit the mask firmly over the face and inhale when you experience the painful contractions. you may feel a little light headed when breathing in the gas, but this feeling will disappear quickly when you stop using the gas.
sometime during the labor contractions, i remember i felt like pushing & i must’ve looked like i was pushing cos the husband told me not to push (he told me later that he didn’t want me to push while he was alone with me in the delivery room hahaha… basically he wanted me to wait till the doctor came in). i think (cos i don’t remember much) i told him to tell the nurses / doctor that i’ve started feeling like pushing. i don’t remember when exactly but suddenly the doctor & 2 nurses came in, examined me & said that it was time cos i was already 9cm dilated. next thing i knew, they made me open my legs & made me grab 2 handles at the side of the bed. i suppose the handles were for me to use as leverage while i pushed.
so i pushed & pushed. i wasn’t bothered with the pain by then, i just did what they told me to do. i was actually sleeping between contractions. i think i was doing it wrong cos they kept telling me not to shout / scream. that i should push as though i was constipated. the husband was also trying to coach me. at one point i got annoyed with everyone for telling me not to scream. i wasn’t screaming out of pain. i was just screaming cos you know, when you push, you’re exhaling. & at times i was exhaling for so long i lost my breath & screaming made me last longer without any air hehehe. according to the husband, 30mins into the pushing, our little one arrived. he was crying as they passed him to me & i remember thinking “my son looks chinese & so familiar.” while they took him to the nursery to be examined, i was being stitched up.
they brought him back a while later all wrapped up but still bloody. i guess its to make sure that no more time was lost for proper bonding. i stayed in the delivery room for about 2 hours before they transferred me to the maternity ward. it was amazing that i could still inch myself from one bed to the other bed. maybe cos the pain killers were still working.
anyways, thank god, everything went well with me & with the baby. we got discharged the day after. to everyone who came by for a visit, thank you.
ok one last thing. i know other first time parents would be interested to know how much it cost us. the total cost came up to about rm3,700 for a 1.5-day stay & a straight-forward normal delivery with minimal complications i.e. vaginal birth with no epidural for the pain & no vacuum / forceps for the delivery. it might have been cheaper if i wasn’t induced & if i didn’t take any form of pain relief.
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