Just look at my babies. They're all so big now. I can hardly believe it has been so many years since they were born. I'm one of those who totally subscribe to the saying "Time flies when you have kids!"
I searched my blog archives to 2007, when Isaac (and this blog!) was born. I think I must have wanted to quickly get this blog going at that time, because I found quite a few posts on Isaac's birth story. Most of it has been captured in this post detailing what happened the night before till when we were called to check in to the hospital, this post about the actual moment of birth (sort of!) and this post - which has pix of new born Isaac. So you can head over to those three posts, if you wish to read what I wrote eight years back. In this post... I'd just ramble on, if you don't mind...
Look at us then! So young! It feels weird. It's this feeling that everything seems like such a long time ago, and yet, also feels like it happened not too long ago! We got married in 2005, and we'd been trying for a baby since. Both our parents kept quiet for a year or so, then... they couldn't control themselves anymore and they started... harping. My mum would pass me articles from the weekly health supplement that newspaper had in them, articles relating to fertility - ya know, what foods to eat to aid in fertility, what exercises to do, what clothes to wear or not to wear - but hubbs' jeans wasn't very tight at all! Oh and she started asking if hubbs shouldn't go cycling so often... My mother-in-law was more direct. She started telling us about every relative however remote. Who was pregnant, who just gave birth, boy or girl, how heavy etc. She started reciting the statistics of how quickly who and who conceived after marriage... You can imagine their relief, and ours(!!!), when we finally got pregnant.
Isaac was our first child. This made everything new to us, a first experience, and hence we were kinda nervous and inexperienced. But then, having no kids then also meant that we had lots of time to read up and talk to people about anything and everything regarding the pregnancy and birth before the baby was actually born.
My birth story was quite a textbook case in terms of how we got the signal that it was time. We got The Show - no, not a live show! The bloody discharge - and no, I'm not cussing!!! The Show is where the volcano plug comes out onto your undies. A red sign to say It's Time! But people told us that it would take quite a while from The Show, to the actual show the husband should get when his baby eventually pops out. So we calmly went about running errands, like packing our bags for the confinement month stay at my parents', dropping off homework at hubbs' then tuition kid, dropping the bags off at my mum's place - and promptly got scolded by my mum for not going into the hospital immediately. So we quickly skipped along to the hospital...
We got to the hospital without any dramatic traffic jams nor accidents, and while in the lift on the way up to the delivery ward - we got a call from my gynae. She basically went "Why are you not in hospital yet?!" Red faced and chastised, we went "Erm, here! Here already!" as we rushed to the nurses station and quickly got registered before a bounty could be placed on our heads.
It was a waiting game from then on. There was the pain of contractions which I endured for four long hours. In this four hours, I dilated a further half a cm. 0.5 cm in 4 hours?! I mentally sketched a graph in my head which had dilation in centimetres on the x-axis and number of hours in labour on the y-axis. It was an extremely steep line. That, and a nurse telling me "You don't need to be a hero." - made up my mind for me to take the epidural. And also because I remember Dr Ang telling me that having an epidural would make me more relaxed so that I would dilate faster.
But no, it took more than 10 hours for me to further dilate from 2.5cm to 10cm. Despite being on epidural and hence not feeling any pain, I did not get to sleep during the entire time, and was feeling very tired by the time I was 10cm dilated. Then I got sleepy too, waiting for my gynae to arrive. And when she finally did, I was almost too tired and sleepy to push. I remember hubbs being very supportive, enthusiastically cheering me on as though I was his favourite basketball team, asking me to push, push, push. I remember pushing with all my might - in between naps. Yes, I managed to nap in between contractions, hubbs says I'm champion at napping - this takes the cake, I guess.
Later, Dr Ang told us that she almost gave up and almost asked us to go for emergency c-section. But she didn't - because I pushed and pushed with all my might. My mum had told me that giving birth to my sister was like pooping - just push, and out she came. She gave birth to me via c-section because I was in a breech position. But pushing Isaac out was definitely no poop in the park. I pushed like I never pushed before. Partly because I couldn't feel anything, due to the epidural. And because I couldn't feel anything from chest down, it was difficult for me to push - does that make sense? So I just pushed with my mind - I willed my body to "push" even though I couldn't feel myself pushing. And out Isaac popped!
I remember my gynae pulling out my placenta, and doing some stitching down below. I prayed and thanked God that I couldn't feel her sewing at all. Then they placed Isaac on my chest. It was a relief to see him. For up until a baby is born safe and sound, there would always be uncertainty and danger. Apparently he had the umbilical cord wound around his neck. Again, said a prayer of thanks. Then I quickly motioned for them to take Isaac away and give me a pan as I needed to vomit, and bleeaaauughhhh... I was told that that was the side effect of having the epidural, to vomit. I was lucky this time, I only vomited once.
Post birth, my pains came mainly from my enthusiastic pushing of my entire lower half of my body - my stomach muscles, thigh muscles, calf muscles all ached so badly, as though I had just climbed Mt Ophir in the 15 hours of labour. My stitches did not hurt at all, and healed well, very quickly. Or maybe the magnitude of the muscle aches simply eclipsed the pain down below so much so that I didn't feel them. Whatever the case, I wasn't complaining. So that, was how Isaac saw the light of day.
I shall leave you here with our favourite picture of baby infant Isaac - and return tomorrow to regale you with Asher & Shawna's birth story!
This post is part of the ‘Birth Stories’ Blog Train hosted by Owls Well. To read other exciting birth stories
please click on this link. If you would like to travel to the previous stops on this Blog Train and read more interesting birth stories,
you can start with this one here by daddy Adrian of In The Wee Hours. Mummy Delphine is the one who is usually blogging In The Wee Hours of the night. She can’t quite believe that she is a mother of three kids. She has
no artistic talent and does not know how to cook, so she spends her
free time reading, blogging, and collecting matryoshka. Occasionally, she successfully coerces Adrian into blogging, like in this post. Go read!!!
At next week's stop we will be visiting Justina and her lovely family. Jus is blessed with three little boys and blogs about her family and homeschooling adventures at Mum in the Making. She has itchy fingers and loves to craft, and survives on chocolate and coffee.
We got to the hospital without any dramatic traffic jams nor accidents, and while in the lift on the way up to the delivery ward - we got a call from my gynae. She basically went "Why are you not in hospital yet?!" Red faced and chastised, we went "Erm, here! Here already!" as we rushed to the nurses station and quickly got registered before a bounty could be placed on our heads.
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| 10 cm dilated! Finally!!! |
It was a waiting game from then on. There was the pain of contractions which I endured for four long hours. In this four hours, I dilated a further half a cm. 0.5 cm in 4 hours?! I mentally sketched a graph in my head which had dilation in centimetres on the x-axis and number of hours in labour on the y-axis. It was an extremely steep line. That, and a nurse telling me "You don't need to be a hero." - made up my mind for me to take the epidural. And also because I remember Dr Ang telling me that having an epidural would make me more relaxed so that I would dilate faster.
But no, it took more than 10 hours for me to further dilate from 2.5cm to 10cm. Despite being on epidural and hence not feeling any pain, I did not get to sleep during the entire time, and was feeling very tired by the time I was 10cm dilated. Then I got sleepy too, waiting for my gynae to arrive. And when she finally did, I was almost too tired and sleepy to push. I remember hubbs being very supportive, enthusiastically cheering me on as though I was his favourite basketball team, asking me to push, push, push. I remember pushing with all my might - in between naps. Yes, I managed to nap in between contractions, hubbs says I'm champion at napping - this takes the cake, I guess.
Later, Dr Ang told us that she almost gave up and almost asked us to go for emergency c-section. But she didn't - because I pushed and pushed with all my might. My mum had told me that giving birth to my sister was like pooping - just push, and out she came. She gave birth to me via c-section because I was in a breech position. But pushing Isaac out was definitely no poop in the park. I pushed like I never pushed before. Partly because I couldn't feel anything, due to the epidural. And because I couldn't feel anything from chest down, it was difficult for me to push - does that make sense? So I just pushed with my mind - I willed my body to "push" even though I couldn't feel myself pushing. And out Isaac popped!
I remember my gynae pulling out my placenta, and doing some stitching down below. I prayed and thanked God that I couldn't feel her sewing at all. Then they placed Isaac on my chest. It was a relief to see him. For up until a baby is born safe and sound, there would always be uncertainty and danger. Apparently he had the umbilical cord wound around his neck. Again, said a prayer of thanks. Then I quickly motioned for them to take Isaac away and give me a pan as I needed to vomit, and bleeaaauughhhh... I was told that that was the side effect of having the epidural, to vomit. I was lucky this time, I only vomited once.
Post birth, my pains came mainly from my enthusiastic pushing of my entire lower half of my body - my stomach muscles, thigh muscles, calf muscles all ached so badly, as though I had just climbed Mt Ophir in the 15 hours of labour. My stitches did not hurt at all, and healed well, very quickly. Or maybe the magnitude of the muscle aches simply eclipsed the pain down below so much so that I didn't feel them. Whatever the case, I wasn't complaining. So that, was how Isaac saw the light of day.
I shall leave you here with our favourite picture of baby infant Isaac - and return tomorrow to regale you with Asher & Shawna's birth story!
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| Our favourite photo of infant Isaac |
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| In the Wee Hours |
At next week's stop we will be visiting Justina and her lovely family. Jus is blessed with three little boys and blogs about her family and homeschooling adventures at Mum in the Making. She has itchy fingers and loves to craft, and survives on chocolate and coffee.
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| Mum in the Making |
Hahaha I can't believe you managed to nap in between contractions! That's so excellent!
ReplyDeleteAlso, newborn Isaac is very VERY sweet - he looks surprisingly round-headed, smooth and nice even after a 12 hour labour. What a lovely baby.
Thank you so much for recapping your birth story - I cannot wait to hear about your experience with the twins!