A new chapter in my life
I don’t know how many birth delivery stories I have read and watched to prepare for my own.
For practical reasons, I would love to have Mit arrived in the last week of February 2022 because my parents were here and our nanny would’ve cleared her SHN by then. But Mit stayed put. I told Dennis that Mit could be a schedule freak like me so he might come on the due date exactly. And surprisingly, he did keep to the timeline.
On 27 Feb - the estimated due date, at 11:30am, I had a bloody show, which was basically light brown blood stain in my panty. I told my husband what happened and we searched online. Doctor Google said baby might come few days later after this incident.
From that moment, I started noticing some contractions which felt like menstrual cramping. I did think it was the same as I felt few days ago, which could be Braxton Hicks. I didn’t track the frequency at this point as I didn’t want to work up my anxiety and the pain was quite near to 0/10. I moved on with my day. I tried to squeeze in a short yoga session in the afternoon.
At around 6pm, I felt the contraction more frequent though pain level was manageable. I used the Contraction Tracker app to start noting down the time. To my surprise, the contractions were already 5 mins apart with 1 minute duration. It was dinner time so auntie Loh prepared extra dish for me (minced pork tofu and fried fish and broccoli). It was a delicious meal, I must say. And it gave me enough energy for what was about to come next.
After dinner, I called the hospital to ask whether I should come in and check. They said I could come in. After that, Dennis washed up and we started rolling. Contraction was at level 3/10. I could technically talk through the contraction but instead I just focused on my breath. I didn’t want to waste my energy on talking.
After 10 mins car ride to NUH, I was wheeled to the triage area though I actually preferred walking. I was given a closed curtain area with 1 bed, few machines and 1 sofa for caregiver. I was plugged into a machine to track baby’s heart beat and my contraction level. It was around 8pm+. I was also given a cervical check. Doctor told me I was 3-4cm dilated at that point and I could stay in the hospital till delivery. I didn’t really like the triage area as it was dark and depressing. I could hear other patients’ conditions which made me anxious even more. Anyway, I was stuck there for almost 4 hours, experiencing contractions as I refused to take epidural at that point. I did see my contraction level ranging from 60-100 based on the reader. And baby heart rate was in normal range, 110 - 160. Surprisingly, throughout the contractions, I just felt uncomfortable, tried to focus on my breath and changed position often to get through the contractions. In the mean time, Dennis read the China Playbook and shared with me what he learnt. I sometimes had to stop him because I couldn’t focus on what he said when I had contraction coming.
At around midnight, a doctor came in to check if I wanted an epidural before she broke my water bag. There were two things I didn’t understand: (1) Why did I need to have my water bag broken? It wasn’t like I was in labor for a very long time. (2) Why did they seem to insist on me having epidural? I didn’t make a lot of noise (in fact no noise) during my contractions. I then asked the nurse to confirm with Prof. Biswas and she said the instruction was coming from him. Who knows? The on-duty doctor said breaking my water bag would help progress my labor faster. At that point of time, I thought I could deliver by 2-3am naturally, naively so I don’t know what ”fast” here meant. The doctor said the labor might take few more hours even with the epidural. But anyway, I also asked to get examined again on the dilation progress to see if I could tolerate the rest without epidural. After 4 hours, it was from 3cm to 5cm. I wasn’t disappointed though I did hope the number could be higher. I then made a decision to go ahead with the epidural, simply because I didn’t think I had enough energy to go through hours of contraction even though each contraction itself was quite bearable. I needed sleep at that point knowing I had to be ready when the push time came.
On 28 Feb - 1am, the on-duty nurse said I needed to move to the delivery room for the epidural procedure. I walked (was not wheeled) to the delivery room with Dennis. Goodbye that depressing triage area!!! My contractions were quite strong and closer together. But I didn’t make much noise and simply focused on breathing. I was so glad that I was sane enough to focus on my breathing at that point. After few minutes, the anaesthesia doctor came and started the procedure. Inserting the needle to the spine (something like that) was uncomfortable and I needed to tell Dennis to tell her when my contraction stopped. After that, I was told to lie down. And magically, epidural works almost immediately for me. I didn’t feel so much pain like before, and my legs started to feel numb, which was expected. My body then felt relaxed as it didn’t need to observe the contraction anymore. I started to doze off, not really sleeping throughout the night. I then thought Mit definitely took some time to arrive, not as soon as I imagined. Poor Dennis needed to curl up in the sofa. I bet he was cold and luckily we prepared a jacket. Nurse came in and out every hour to key in some numbers.
Then at around 6am, the on-duty doctor came in (another one) to check my dilation. Apparently, it was 10cm (hooray) but the fetal station was still high, at 0. I then tried to move my legs in a swan position and moved myself to sit up higher (with Dennis’ help of course). I didn’t know if it helped, to be honest.
At 7am, a doctor came in to check and said the same thing. Full dilation but fetal position still high. But she said I could try to push soon. The epidural dose reduced to the lowest level. Actually, the contraction was like a light menstrual cramping so I didn’t feel much pain. Anyway, that was when the doctor / nurse waiting game started. Different people came in at different time to evaluate my pushing. I guess they might be fully occupied with all the labors happening so 1 person came in for like 5 minutes and went out. Then we waited for another 10 minutes and another person came in. It was back and forth like that for 1-2 hours.
At around 8-9am, the pushing game seemed to be serious and baby started moving down. I was asked to feel the contraction, inhaled, held my breath for 10 counts while pushing, then exhaled. Repeated that as many times as I could during a contraction (about 3 times). The whole pushing wasn’t painful, more like creating pressure. After an hour, baby seemed to be ready as I noticed Prof Biswas came in. To me that’s when labor started haha. Suddenly I saw 1 nurse and 2 female doctors coming in. They just encouraged me to push harder and harder. Prof tried to take the baby out. Mit seemed to be in ROA position, which was an optimal position for birth. I only felt pressure, more coming from the external than within. The only moments (2 minutes) that I felt pain (because of surprise) was when the 2 female doctors pushed their hands on my stomach to push baby out. At that point, they also didn’t wait for any contraction and just asked me to push. I didn’t expect that so it was painful for that little while. Then I heard the beautiful cry from Mit already. Mit is here, finally. It was 9:56am when he was born. It was a perfect time simply he was healthy and both of us were there with him.
Baby delivery was over. Then, prof cut the umbilical cord as Dennis was scared he might cut wrongly. Placenta was delivered shortly after that. I had few stitches due to episiotomy. But all was fine. Super thankful for the uneventful experience.
The patient’s mattress is way too soft and uncomfortable for me. I told Dennis to sleep on the patient’s bed while I rested on the caregiver chair due to pain. Mit was sleeping in a cot next to me. I tried to feed him on demand. But I didn’t know how long the feed was supposed to be. And I didn’t know why he still cried after feeding. After half an hour of trying, I asked the nurse to come in and help. She brought him to the nursery so that I could get some sleep. I dozed off for few hours and when I woke up, I realised it was more than 4 hours that Mit was taken away. I asked her to bring him back. At that time, I didn’t know they used formula milk so I was worried that he was starving. When Mit came back, I tried to feed him on and off until the morning came. He was sleeping for like 1 hour till the next feed and the cycle repeated.
In the morning, few doctors visited me and baby to check on how we were doing. We were both fine. Mit seemed to have high level of jaundice, which required us to check again in the next few days. While Dennis tried to settle all the admin work for Mit, I fed him as much as I could as I didn’t want him to cry on the journey home.
I was nervous of bringing him out of the hospital for the first time. It meant we were on our own from now on (though the nanny was waiting for us at home). Luckily, Mit was a good boy. He didn’t make any fuss on the way home till the moment we opened the door. Nanny was waiting at home and ready to take care of him.
I remembered the night was a rough one as I didn’t expect myself to wake up every 1 hour and feed him for 30-45 minutes sitting on my butt crack pain. But I got through it. I told myself it would get better. At least Mit got enough sleep and he wasn’t hungry.