Tuesday, April 05, 2011

From 3AM to 318PM…

As promised, here’s my popping story! Jay’s story is here, if you are interested…

It was a Monday night, and Nic & I turned in at just before midnight.

It was going to be a long Tuesday for me, as I was mentally going through the mountain-load of work that needed to be done before I popped. The minutes to be done, the reviews, the finalizations, the meetings to attend… It looked to be one long Tuesday.

Just past midnight, I was quite uncomfortable, and couldn’t get into a comfortable-enough position to sleep. Fast forward three hours later, and I still found myself awake, wriggling to get into a comfy position, and all the while, the words of my gynae came floating to mind: “It’s your 2nd pregnancy… Don’t wait until you experience strong pain, come in when it is just moderate pain… Moderate pain… Moderate pain…” That and the chilling possibility of being “too late” … too late to get an epidural, I mean! I also timed my contractions, which was at 8 minutes apart.

So just before 3AM, I couldn’t take the mental battle, and decided that for my peace of mind, I wanted to go in to have a check. Woke Nic up, went out of the room to switch on the bathroom heater and to charge my camera battery (Haha… the blogger in me!) and came in… to find Nic still in the same sleeping position. So I told him, “Dear! I wasn’t kidding!” “Now? Really?” “Yesssss…” But he has a quick recovery time, and by the time I came out from my quick bath, he’d already woken the maid (to get her to sleep with Jayvon), packed my hospital bag (that was set aside but not packed into the bag).

We reached delivery suite of Gleneagles Hospital by 405AM, and I was soon hooked up. And the nurse told me, with my 7-minute-apart contraction and 1CM dilation, it was unlikely they would be discharging me back home. And so, Nic & I sent out the messages to our family, friends and colleagues!

By 645AM, the nurse came in for yet another VE. And I tell you, the first one she did was soooooooooooooo painful, there was NO WAY I was letting her near me. And so, I requested for an epidural. Why endure any more pain than necessary? I admit, my threshold for pain is practically non-existent. And so once the epidural was administered, the nurse told me I was only 1.5CM dilated. But I thought, based on Jay’s experience, I needed some comfort and rest to get the dilation going.

By 9AM, my gynae came by… and by then, my dilation was now… still 1.5CM! He started me on induction (but not before grumbling that I had come in “too early”…) and when he came by again at 11AM, the dilation was still not happening, and he had to manually stretch the opening to 4CM (all the way grumbling even more).

He told me he would come by again at 2PM.

But by this time, I had a brooding feeling – my colleague had a similar experience, and as the dilation was not happening, she had to go for a C-sect! Yikes! I didn’t want that!!!

But Xav had other plans.

By 245PM, the gynae hadn’t come, and I had just woken from a nap. Called for the nurse cos I had the strangest urge to pee whenever the contractions came. Strange cos with Jay I felt nothing at all. Totally zilch. Well, when the nurse came, she told me she will call the gynae down as I was ready to deliver… 10CM already! Xav did it! Haha!

That was when I started messaging friends and colleagues to expect Xav out anytime. My colleague even teased that I should tweet, and so I did. At 314PM: “Thanks for all your tweets/bbms/messages… baby X should be out in the next hour *fingers & toes crossed!*

Put my phone down, as the gynae told me to push.

Push #1: Gynae: “Too hard! Push softer the next round.”

Push #2: Gynae: “Push very slowly. Ok stop. Push a bit harder. Ok stop. Push just a little more. Ok can already.”

And out came Xavier. I kid you not. With Jay I was at least a bit breathless after three hard pushes. This hardly felt like labour.

So I have come to the conclusion. I have a lot of grace in the area of the pregnancy and birthing experience. It’s the post-birth that take the toll on me! Hahahaha!

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Some shots of Jay with his baby brother! My two princes!

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