I was due on the 29th December 2016, 5 days early. Baby rainbow was born on the Christmas eve, 6.33am last year.
My labour didn't go as birth plan and how I hoped for. I wanted to give birth using natural painkillers such as gas and air, breathing, walking around, no epidural or anything like that. Sometimes things just do not happen the way we want them to. On Wednesday morning, which was on the 21st Dec 2016, I had a bit of bleeding and felt menstrual-like cramps since the night. It happened that I had an appointment with the government clinic, I told the nurse my symptoms and she advised us to go to our private gynae to get examined. So, we went to our private gynae. I got accessed and I was only 1cm dilation. So, we were told to go home and wait. At that point me and tubby looked at each other and we were like sigh, still have to wait. We were so excited and were thinking that; this is it, we are going to have our baby. That didn't happen and so off we went home.
We went out for the next two days, trying to walk more. I still had contractions but they were bearable. They were about 10 mins interval but went away after a minute.
Finally on Friday night, which was 23rd Dec 2016, while me and tubby were watching movie on bed, contraction started getting so intense. We timed the contraction and they were 3-4 mins interval. Tubby called the hospital and the midwife asked us to go have a check. I was wheeled in through A&E and got examined again. I got admitted at 10pm with 3cm dilation. Changed into hospital gown, was given suppository. Midwife asked whether I wanted epidural, I replied no. From 10pm-2am, I was bearing the pain. For the 4 hours, I couldn't sleep. In fact, I had not slept well since the contractions started on Wednesday. My energy level had gone down. Tubby was next to me holding my hand, he couldn't sleep as well. At 2am, I really couldn't bear with the pain anymore. The contractions were 2-3 mins apart. My pain level went from like 5-9. Normally my pain tolerance is pretty high but at that moment, it was excruciating!!! It felt like my backbone was eaten up bit by bit and I started getting intense pain shooting down the back of my leg and butt. I asked for gas and air but it did nothing, nothing at all! I was in such an agony, I started screaming, I couldn't control my pain. I couldn't lie still on the bed. I was fidgeting and crouching to find the most comfortable position but I couldn't. I was on the verge to push my baby out already but midwife said not ready yet. My dilation was only 7cm at that moment. All the breathing exercises that I practiced went out of the window. Nothing helped at all. Finally I surrendered and asked for epidural. The anaesthetist didn't take long to arrive, thankfully! I was given epidural at 3am. The moment she injected the epidural to my spine, I felt numb from belly down almost immediately. No more pain but relieved. My breathing went back to normal. It felt like the whole world stopped. Everything was quiet. I could only hear the voice of the anaesthetist. I was then asked to sleep and finally I managed to sleep for a good 3 hours until I felt a soft 'pop' in my pelvis area. Yes, my waterbag broke. Midwife helped to clean.
At about 5:45am, midwife came in to prep me to practice pushing before gynae arrives. At every contraction the midwife would ask me to push like passing motion. Apparently at every push-relax-push-relax cycle, baby's crown would appear a little when I pushed and went back in when I relaxed. Because of epidural, I couldn't feel anything belly down, I wasn't screaming at all, not like how we watched on TV. I could even ask tubby to remember taking video of the whole process.
And then gynae walked in. Once I saw him, I was in such a huge relief and sure that things are going to turn out good! After all, he had looked after me and baby for almost 9 months. During the appointments with him, he was all smiley but that morning, he was so focused. Suddenly I find him so charming :P. Through his spectacles, I could see a little bit of reflection of what was going on my down there.
After 5 pushes, with a lot of encouragement from gynae and midwife, Rainbow came out. At that moment, all the pain washed away. All I could think of was; Thank you! to God, to tubby, to Rainbow, to gynae, to midwife.
Gynae placed rainbow on my chest for skin-to-skin and she reached for my boobs and suckled gently for the first time. That special first bonding, I will never forget. While she was on my chest, my gynae stitched me up but I couldn't feel anything. Then out the placenta. I was on a total euphoric high even though I should have felt exhausted. We facetimed my sister and my 2 nieces.
Even though my labour didn't unfold exactly as I wanted it to, labour was still a very positive experience and it taught me many things. All in all, I'm just happy that everything happened really fast during the labour. That pain, I don't think I have ever felt such pain in my life before. I don't want to scare anyone here. Every birth story is different. I just want to record mine and reminisce in the future. Our birth story is one I will be forever grateful for and immensely proud of. It brought the sweetest baby girl into our lives and that is all that mattered to us in the end, no matter how she came into this world. We love her to pieces and can't imagine life without her.
After 3 days staying in hospital, everything was good and we were cleared to go home. Thumbs up!
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