It's been a whirlwind 2 weeks for me since the birth of my little princess.
Let's see...where shall I start....
I will start from the day I admitted myself into the hospital. With my previous history, my gynae advised me to do an induction from week 39. So I decided to choose the date 07/07 because it's easy to remember and even if the date format is MMDD or DDMM, its still the same...hahaha. But the flipside is, we can't have the surprise element of having waterbag burst and hurrying to the hospital.
I went into the hospital on 6th night around 10.30pm. Upon checking in, the nurse came and did the admission for me asking me a series of questions etc. Finally, the nurse inserted some pill in me to soften the cervix. Before inserting, the nurse already mentioned that my cervix had soften so the whole process will be pretty fast.
I couldn't sleep the whole night...maybe because I was too excited, wondering what will it be like the next day...anxious about being a mom finally or is it because the bed is really not comfortable for me. I was like walking around the room the whole night and thus making hubby unable to sleep as well.
I asked for a single room when checking in but was told the single room was fully occupied so they had me in a converted single room which is in fact a 2-bedded room but I will be the only occupant. Which is good because the room is bigger, there are 2 LCD TVs each for us and my hubby got to sleep on an actual bed instead of a sofa bed.
Around 4am, I started to feel some tightness in my tummy...I was wondering and wondering if I should call the nurse in. But since it will be another few hours before I will be pushed to the delivery suite, I decided to just "sleep" and wait.
Around 5.30am, I decided to go and take a shower and washed my hair. God knows when is the next time I can do that..hahaha
Then around 6am, the nurse came in and gave me something to make me poo.She asked me to wait 5 - 10mins before I go toilet but within 3 minutes, I couldn't hold it any longer and ran to the toilet. That was fast...remind me to get it if I had constipation next time. Heehee
Around 6.30am, the nurse came and asked me to get ready and we took a lift down to the delivery suite.
So while waiting for the anaesthetist to come, we just sat and watched the news on TV while they put the monitoring devices on me.
The anaesthetist came around 7.30am and administered the epidural for me. They started me on such small dosage that
I feel no difference. Still felt the pinch my hubby gave me..hahaha
So after that, I had to lie on the bed and we watched the news again for the next one hour before my gynae came.
The gynae came around 8.30am to poke my waterbag and found that there is meconium. This is not too good cos' if baby
swallows the poo, it might affect his lungs. So the gynae said, it was good that we decided to induce instead of waiting till
full term. What was worrying is that if the induction didn't work, the baby might go into distress and with the meconium, it does not bore well. By that time, I was 3 cm dilated.
The gynae said he will come back 4 hours later to check on me as statistically it took about an hour to dilate 1 cm. ABout 15mins later, the nurse told my hubby that his breakfast is waiting for him upstairs and so hubby went up to take his breakfast. Shortly after he left, I started to feel pain. I paged the nurse and asked her to increase the dosage. The nurse told me it will take 15-20mins for the next dosage to take effect...so i waited....after 15mins, the pain intensifies instead of subsiding. I paged the nurse again and this time the midwife came in and told me...this time round, it will take 20-30mins for the epidural to take effect.
Ok...this is not too good...I paid for something which is not relieving my pain at all. Thank God, I still managed to endure the pain with breathing exercises. The midwife then checked and found that I was 7-8cm dilated. That's fast for a supposedly 4 hour wait. She started unpacking the stuff needed for the delivery and I was thinking oh no...will Philip missed the birth of her daughter while happily munching on his breakfast upstairs...
Thank God, he came in around 9.20am and was surprised to see the midwife unpacking all the stuff. I told him I am feeling a lot of pain. So he was there holding my hand, helping me with the breathing exercises by letting me know when is the next contraction coming. The midwife did another check and I was 9cm dilated. She quickly phoned my gynae and told him I will deliver soon and then called the PD.
She asked me to push every time I felt pain and so I did. Strangely, when I pushed, I don't feel that much pain. In any case, when the gynae arrived, he could see the head of the baby and asked me to stop pushing. He quickly put on his gown and prepared everything and then together with the PD, both of them are cheering me on to push. Within 2 - 3 pushes, I delivered my baby girl at 10.07am.
It was a short labour to the surprise of everyone, including my gynae and the anaesthetist. He kept saying his epidural couldn't catch up with my contractions.
It was such a strange experience, seeing the baby that is inside you for the past 10 months in person. They cleaned up
the baby and we started to take some photos. Then the baby is whisked off for further checks as they fear she might have
swallow the meconium.
I was told to lie on the bed till they released me. So it was more news on the TV for me again. I think I was there till around 1.30pm before they pushed me back to my ward.
Soon after they pushed the baby back to me and seeing her for the first time, it was just so amazing. Well...the eveing and next day were spent entertaining friends, colleagues and family members. Thanks to all my friends and colleagues who brought so much blessings in gifts and congratulatory messages to us and our baby.
Then it was feeding time for the baby...hmmm...i paged for a lactation consultant to teach me how to breastfeed the baby. Thereafter, the first 2 times were pretty successful, after the 3rd time, it started to get real painful. Still I had to let her latch on. It was such a painful experience.
Back home, my MIL and Mum kept commenting is it because I have not enough to feed the baby, that's why she was crying all the time etc. The comments just kept repeating themselves many times a day that I was really feeling the stress and almost wanted to give up. Thank God that hubby was very supportive and stood by me all the time.
It's been 2 weeks since our princess was borned. My mlik supply has increased and I was glad I persisted. However, breastfed baby tends to get hungry easily as breastmilk is easily digestible so I had to feed a lot of times a day. In the first week after she came back, she developed jaundice and we had to send her back to the hospital for "spa" treatment aka phototherapy for 2 days. During those 2 days, they fed her formula and my expressed milk when I brought to the hospital the next day.
I gave her formula milk about twice a night so that she can sleep longer and I can sleep longer too...heee. During the times when she was awake drinking formula milk, I would be expressing my milk for her the next day. In this way, I can also track how much she is drinking.
So that's about sums up what has been going on for the past month or so. Tune in again....when I have the time to blog
