Let’s start from the day before Blake was born.
It was 8 September 2010, our estimated due date (EDD) for Blake was 9 September 2010. I felt a lot movements, which was as usual, but I also felt some pain. Not intense but it was discomforting. I have been quite paranoid in the last two weeks of my pregnancy (the day my gynae said, “Anytime now!”). I had tons of worries and fears about actually giving birth, and whether my boy will be born healthy (or even born at all!).
So that evening, I called my gynae, Dr. Lim, and told him what I was feeling. He said I could be experiencing early contractions, and that baby could arrive anytime now. The minute Sean came home, I told him and he said, “Let’s have dinner first, and we’ll head down to the hospital.”
The pain was on and off, I had no appetite for dinner. All I was thinking then was, “My baby’s coming, and everyone’s so calm!”
When we finally arrived at the hospital, we were led to the maternity ward. Dr. Lim arrived a little later, and did a check. He said what I was experiencing was definitely contractions, but in the really early stage. He said I should stay in the hospital, just in case the baby decides to arrive.
The nurses monitored me closely, and we spent the night there. Nothing.
Dr. Lim came in early in the morning at about 7.30am, checked again and said that it’s still a little early, but that the baby is on its way. He asked if we wanted to go home and wait it out or to just burst my water bag and have the baby now. It was our EDD, after all.
Part of me wanted to wait, but the other part of me was afraid. What if I keep him in longer, and he dies? Weird thoughts I have, I know.
In the end, we decided to burst my water bag, and have our baby.
So I had needles plugged into me, and my water bag burst. Oh, I had my intestines cleared out too. Whatever the nurse gave me, it only took less than one minute for it to take effect, instead of the supposed 10.
Then we text and called our family to inform them, to which my mom rushed down immediately. Did I mention that it was her birthday that day? 🙂
When the contractions became a little too unbearable, I opt for laughing gas, skipping the thigh injections. Sean wanted to give my mom an update of our progress, so he took a photo and went out to the waiting area to show her.
The photo apparently shocked my mom, so Sean came back in to take another one, and went back out to assure her that I was doing ok.
Soon, the laughing gas was no longer effective, and I was breathing more laughing gas than oxygen. I was laughing, and crying at the same time, and my eyes could barely stay open. I don’t think I was high or anything, but I was definitely not in the right frame of mind. I was delirious, I guess. Sean got a little worried when I started crying harder, and asked if I would prefer to go for epidural. Yes, yes, I did.
I was initially really terrified of the idea of a needle sticking up my back, but when I was in that state, nothing really matters anymore! You have no idea how happy I was to have been off the laughing gas, and have the ability to talk normally again! Only thing was, I couldn’t feel anything from waist down. All I felt was numbness, sort of a fuzzy vibration kind of numbness.
A couple of hours later, it was time. Dr. Lim and the nurses came in. Sean was asked to hold my head forward, Dr. Lim had that sucking machine on standby in case baby needed some assistance to come out. I can’t be sure what happened, but the next thing I saw was this thing that the nurse put on top of me, and before I could see much of what it was, it was taken away.
According to Sean, I pushed a total of three times, but I was using the wrong muscles for the first two pushes. So technically, Blake took only one push to be out! Hehe.
By the time I was able to lift my head up, I heard the nurse screaming, and a baby crying, and I saw a stream of fluid hitting the nurse in her chest. Dr. Lim then said, “Baby’s urine is sterile. Don’t have to panic.”
And there, my baby has arrived 🙂
