Welcome My Little Prince - Bradley’s Birth

Baby Bradley was delivered on W39.6, one day before EDD. Writing this 2y4m after his birth, I recalled most of the experience through WhatsApp’s chat history. 😁

W39.1 - It was my final checkup. Doctor said she had a planned leave during my EDD, so asked us whether we wanted to set a date to induce labor next week before she went on leave. Manual dilation by doctor. And we went home to calculate fengshui date for the birth lol.

W39.3 - Mucus plug fell off. Went to hospital to check but dilation still remained at 2cm. Went to watch <A Star Is Born> at the cinema and got inspired by Bradley Cooper for our baby’s name. 😁

W39.5 - The day has almost arrived! Was feeling anxious that there was still no signs of baby coming, and it was getting nearer to the EDD where my doctor would be on leave. Took Pastor’s advice to walk around in the garden to help with labor. Then in the evening, I started to feel irregular contractions at 7pm, but still mild and bearable. Went to hospital for checkup but dilation still remained at 2cm. Decided not to admit but to go home to wait it out as hospital was too freezing cold. 

W39.6 - Around 2am I was crunching my body in a fetal position, trying to withstand the painful contractions till 5am. As I asked hubby to check when I could take epidural and he said need to wait till dilation 4cm. The contractions lasted around 1 minute each time - during that 1 minute I would recite Psalm 23 and The Lord’s Prayer, which was long enough to withstand the pain for 1 minute. 🙏 At 5am I couldn’t take it any longer, my face was ashen and I decided to call my neighbor to take care of Hayley as we went to hospital. 

Reached hospital at 6am and went through the birth preparation and monitoring process - shaving, inserting suppository to pass motion, signing consent forms, requesting epidural, monitoring baby’s heart rate, monitoring my BP etc. The midwife who was with me was not very friendly. The anesthesiologist came to administer the epidural, I asked is it need to wait till dilation 4cm and he asked me, “Didn’t you go for birthing class? You can come right in at the start!” Garhh I had endured the pain for nothing. 😖 After that, I found out I could increase the epidural dosage until I could feel zero pain, and that is what I did! 😁 After that, it was total peace and calm and heavenly till birth. 

9am - Dilation at 7cm. Doctor had put her whole fist in to check dilation but I couldn’t feel a thing. 

10am - Midwife put a drip to make the dilation happen faster. At this point something funny happened. Hubby thought it was gonna be another few hours of waiting so he went down to the car to get a book. Then doctor arrived at around 10.30am, looked around and asked, “Where’s daddy? Going to start soon.” Then I faster called hubby to rush back to the labor room lol. 

As I was on epidural I couldn’t feel any sensation at all. The missions doctor had to rely on the monitor to know when my contractions were coming, the big ones. They strapped up my legs, elevated the table and fixed the light. Then the doctor told me to push, just like skiing. I thought to myself, “skiing is not a good experience for me...” Well I tried my best I could to mimic the push... using my imagination. And I tried a few times and the baby was out! However something was kinda off as I could see a lot of action going around, and the baby was not crying as I expected. I told hubby to go and look at the baby, why it was not crying. And just then, I could hear its cries! 😄😄 Later on Doctor told us that it was due to umbilical cord around the neck and she was trying to save the baby. Well, hubby didn’t get to cut the cord like in the TV shows. 😄

And that was it! The birth of my son. 🥰 After that, I was left there until the drip finished. Felt nauseous and threw up. Then felt very very faint although I was still lying down, until the Paediatrician came in and tilted my upper body down for blood to flow to my head. And the unbearable chills. All these were part of the side-effects of epidural.