babee tales

Sunday, 20 March 2011 The best laid plans of mice and men, oft go awry. How true this quote holds. At 38 weeks, I was all ready for mei mei to make her appearance. She didn't. At 39 weeks, I was convinced, this is it, time to induce her after the gynae check-up. She didn't agree. I stopped expecting and went about my daily activities, quite convinced that she would stay in the tummy in comfort till 40 weeks, which my gynae and I agreed would be the date we would induce. Gary, the kids and I managed to attend the kids' school carnival, a birthday party at a farm, meet up with some baby friends and even explore a new playground. Mei mei decided then that it was time to make her grand appearance and not wait till next week. It is interesting that even after having 2 kids beforehand, I really do not know what contractions feel like. Both kids had been induced and delivered in a controlled environment, with full epidural. To me, contractions seemed merely to be just a tightening in the tummy area, causing mild discomfort. The day before mei mei was born, I had totally no inkling that she was ready. In fact, I had quite an active day, doing grocery shopping, checking out sofas with mum and rounding off the day with a trip to the playground with the kids. At night, I felt kind of wiped out and had an early night after tucking the kids into bed. When Gary came home a bit later, I was awakened. It was around this time that I felt regular contractions about 15 min apart. It was mildly painful but bearable, and I figured it would be like that for the rest of the night. I could possibly visit my gynae in the morning to see if things were moving along. Two hours later, I was still awake. Hmm ... this time the pain seemed to be increasing slightly. I do think my threshold for pain is quite high, though. So even with the increased pain, I thought to myself, maybe I'll just watch some TV throughout the night, no point waking up Gary or my gynae due to some false alarm. Ten minutes later, I decided ... uh ... this pain seems a bit too much to bear, maybe we should induce her tonight, don't think I want to bear with this pain all night. So off I went to wake up Gary, who had only just fallen asleep. In the wee hours of the morning, we sped off to the hospital. On the way, we called my gynae who sounded surprisingly fresh and chirpy at that time. I guess she is used to such late night calls. By the time we reached the hospital, I knew I had made the right decision. The contractions were like 5 min apart and when the pain came, it took my breath away. My first thought was quick quick, get me the epidural. In the midst of contractions, the nurse kept asking me about my last known weight. Gary said I sure took a long time to answer her simple question. Ha! Let's see him try answering any simple questions in between intense pain. Anyway, the nurse said she had to check for dilation before calling for epidural and so she did. Thereafter, she told me sympathetically, uh, you are fully dilated, so no time for epidural. I was crestfallen! She then offered me the option of gas, I grabbed it, whatever works man. Unlike epidural, I realise that the gas does not really alleivate any pain. What it does though is to dull your mind (so you cannot lucidly scold yourself for not checking in earlier with ample time for epidural) and also gives you something to focus on when the pain sets in. By this point, the contractions pain was really at its peak. Even when the nurses had to poke in the IV needle in my hand for the drip a few times as they could not locate the vein (I always have this problem), I could barely feel this as I was just focused on breathing in the gas for the pain. My only thought was that my doc is on her way and this is going to end and true enough, she arrived a few minutes later. Since I was fully dilated, I could start pushing baby. It's very important to have an encouraging doc and for both of you to have a good rapport. Her voice gave me great relief as she told me when to push harder and when to stop and also to stop breathing into the gas so quickly like some mad woman. Interestingly, in the midst of all this, Gary had merrily gone off to fill up some admission forms and they had to track him down and rush him back to the delivery suite. My doc was saying, shall we wait a bit for Gary to come back, haha, and in my mind I was like ... No ... let's get on with it! But he did make it back, to see the whole delivery process as he has always done for Nat and Lucas. And finally, my fiesty little sweetheart, Samantha, makes her grand appearance into our world, delivered at a record time of one hour. I was kept in the delivery suite for a few hours more as there was some heavy bleeding thereafter but when that cleared up, I could go back to the normal room, just in time for breakfast. Interestingly, without the side effects of epidural, I actually started to feel quite normal by this time and sent Gary off to get me some breakfast.