After loading my hospital bag into the car, we leave home and drive to the hospital. To think, the next time I come home, I would be carrying Xuan home with us. A thrill of anticipation ran through my body.
We checked into the hospital without any problems and we are given a single room with an extra bed for H. At 1:45am, I was induced into labour. This part was worse than I expected, I did not expect to feel so sore. I started having cramps and a really bad backache. My backache was so bad, I couldn’t sleep. I kept tossing and turning, but I couldn’t find a comfortable position to ease the pain in my back. What I really wanted was a soothing back massage, but by this time, H was fast asleep. I contemplated waking him up, but then I thought this was only the beginning of my labour, and we still had a long way to go, so I decided to let him rest. Heck, I needed to rest, but I was anxious and excited about meeting Xuan soon.
Around 4am, the midwife came with the CTG machines to check on the fetal heartbeat and my contractions. The baby was doing fine, and I was having regular contractions, about 40 over a scale of 100 in intensity and every 10 minutes. I did not feel too much pain from the contractions, the backache felt much worse.
At 6am, the midwife came to check me and told me I was 2 – 3cm dilated. She told me that this was good progress and I did not need to have another pill inserted. Thank goodness for this, I really hated this part and almost kicked the midwife in the face. We were told to get ready to move to the delivery room. At 6:30am, we walked to the delivery room. On the way, we saw another pregnant lady also going to one of the delivery rooms, but she was alone. I am so glad that H was with me, especially after all he said about not wanting to be in the delivery room as he was afraid of fainting at the sight of blood.
At 7am, the anesthetist came to talk to me about pain management. I was not planning to have an epidural so soon, I was thinking of only taking the epidural after Dr. G burst the water bag. I had heard stories of when the epidural was administered too soon, it slowed the progress of labour. I was afraid if my labour progress was slow, the baby would go into fetal distress and I would have to undergo a Caesarean section. However, the anesthetist advised me to have the epidural now, as my labour was progressing quite well and if I delayed, my labour might progress too fast after the water bag is burst and it would be too late for me to have the epidural then. After thinking about it, I decided to have the epidural.
So I leaned against H, with my back curved like the letter C. The doctor inserted the needle, I did not feel any pain, but poor H felt a little dizzy from seeing the huge needle go into my back! The doctor and midwife were immediately concerned and asked him to sit down. I felt very comfortable soon after that, I didn’t feel my contractions, and best of all, my backache was gone. We amused ourselves looking at the CTG machine charting my contractions. Soon after the epidural, my contractions started going off the charts, above 100! Luckily, I already had the epidural and didn’t feel the pain.
Dr. G came in to check on me around 8am and he burst my waterbag. I asked him if I could eat a little was I was hungry. He said something light, so I had some hot chocolate and dry biscuits. H and I watched some TV, but there was nothing interesting on. By 10am, I was 7 – 8 cm dilated. At this point, I asked H to hold my hand. When I squeezed his hand really hard, he looked at me worriedly and asked if I was in pain. I told him no, but I wanted him to have the full experience of a wife going through the pain of labour. We have heard stories from friends about their wives squeezing their hands until their blood circulation was cut off, fighting, and in one case, the hubby was punched by his wife! Even though I was not in pain, I did feel some tightening over my abdomen when I had contractions.
At 10:30am, the midwife came and taught me how to do some practice pushes. At 10:40am, Dr. G came and we were ready to start pushing. After 3 – 4 pushes, Xuan was born! She was put on my chest and she was already crying! I looked at this tiny, little perfect baby and felt a wave of emotions. Joy, that our little girl was with us, and relief, that she was finally born safely. I looked into her eyes, she looked into mine, and I felt she was looking into my soul. Yes, we already knew each other.
Too soon, they took her away to clean and measure her. H went with her. The doctor and midwife gave her an apgar score of 9 at delivery and 10 for 5 minutes after delivery. Best of all, Dr. G said she was a healthy girl!
Xuan was born at 10:50am on Thursday, 8 January 2009 weighting 2.75kg, measuring 47cm in length. Welcome to our world, our darling daughter!
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