The Arrival of Our Little Prince

On 14 April 2009, I gave birth to my little baby boy,Jared, 2 days after my due date. This delivery was a little interesting compared to my Emily's.

A week prior to the delivery day, my gynea called up to say that he had to go on emergency leave and will only be back 1 week after my due date and had referred me to another gynea in the same hospital. I was very unhappy and worried as I did not have any experience or trust in this new gynea, so I decided to ask friends if they know the background of this Doc. There were a mixture of opinions about him, finally I decided to consult him personally on Sunday morning. The first thing he said to me after I told him my due date was that very day, he said I should go for induction. Immediately my trust for him dived 50% coz he hadn't even checked if I have dilated and already made such suggestion. After that he checked my cervix and said it's already 3 cm dilated and from the scanning, he commented that baby's head is big, estimated baby will be about 3.6kg. And then he scheduled for me to come in for induction on Wednesday the week itself. When I told him I didn't want to go for induction yet, he wasn't very happy with my decision.

Throughout the day, I did alot of thinking about the induction thingy, discussing with hubby and also friends. Infact my 1st baby was delivered through induction. I didn't want to take the risk of inducing and then not dilating accordingly and finally ending up going for c-sect. Finally both hubby and I decided we will not go for the Wednesday induction.

Infact I had been having mild contractions throughout the past few days but nothing major. So life went on, even helping hubby to vacumn the floor on Sunday afternoon. I went in to office on Monday to settle some stuffs before taking the other half day off. When hubby sent me home, he jokingly asked me to wash my hair and cleanup in case I delivered on the night itself :). At night, I could feel the contractions were getting stronger, however the interval was far apart, so I knew they were just braxton hicks. I felt the urge to pee more frequently and when I went to the washroom at 11.30pm, I noticed some blood stains. Somehow, I felt relieved coz I had a feeling I will be delivering soon, went to ask hubby who were already snoozing, that I might be delivering soon. I could sensed he was a bit panic at that time as we did not experienced this with Emily. She was delivered on scheduled induction. After that I felt the contractions getting stronger but I thought I could wait till morning before going to the hospital. I started to monitor the frequency of the contractions and noticed that the interval was about 5 minutes and lasted for about 1 minute. I woke up hubby and told him it was time to go to the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital, I was immediately brought to the delivering room, strapped my tummy to a heart beat monitoring equipment to check the baby's heart beat rate. The nurse in-charged came to check my cervix dilation and to my suprise it was already 7 cm dilated. She told me it was a good thing I came in immediately, infact I was a bit relief to find out that my cervix had dilated so much and only left 3 cm to go. It was slightly after 1am. The next 2 hrs was full of pain, hubby was beside me, not much he could do except performing some light massages on my shoulder. The pain was tremendous when the dilation reached 8cm, no pain killer could be administered as my dilation was already 7cm when I arrived at the hospital, it would only work if given around 6cm dilation. I didn't want to go on epidural though . The nurses were very supportive, offered me the pain relieving gas (Entonox) instead. It wasn't as good as the pain killer (1st baby experience), however it was still better than nothing :)
When the dilation reached 9cm, I could hear the nurse asking another nurse to call my new gynea. My water bag hasn't bursted at that time. I still did not see my gynea after a while and were finally told that he had another ICU patient to attend to. Goodness gracious.... another gynea was called in, she stepped into the labour room and said "hi, I have not seen you before" :). I knew who she was though.

Finally my water bag bursted and my dilation had reached 10cm. It was time to push. I had a difficult time pushing the baby out as he was big. 2 nurses were helping to push my stomach, hubby was lifting my sholulder to make my pushing more effective, gynea was at the receiving side asking me to push whenever I felt the contractions. Those moments were like the tug of war game but instead of pulling, I was being given the support to push. I overheard the gynea telling hubby that if the baby didn't come out soon, she will need to use vacumn as baby could be overstressed. Since I have wanted to have a normal delivery all along, I couldn't give up at this last moment and told myself to give the last hardest push all I could and finally I heard everyone shouted, "baby is out". I felt the greatest relief when I heard him crying. It was a moment of joy for both hubby and me. Though it was a painful 2 hrs, nothing beats the happiness when I saw my baby boy placed on me right after delivery.

Indeed a big baby, weighing 3.85kg and 56cm in length.
Hubby left to see baby at the nursery and then went home to rest. I was transfered to the maternity ward where there was another lady who had just delivered the previous day.

As I have asked to fully breastfed my baby before delivering, a nurse from the nursery came to ask me to go to the nursery for breastfeeding that morning itself, though it was still painful to walk due to the severe wound and many stitches, I still made the effort to walk to the nursery as I have not seen my little one since he left for the nursery.

When Jared was brought to me for the 1st breasfeeding seesion, I was impressed at how fast he started sucking when I put him near my breast even though I felt a little tense holding such a little baby (after > 5 yrs not holding a new born baby :) ) . It was a great feeling where all mommies will cheerish.
As it was a 3 days 2 nights package, I was discharged with Jared on the 3rd day. Glad to be home with hubby and Emily.

Jared's photo of 1 day old