Sketches of Life|Life Lived in Simplicity

Mother is always right. My mom told me on the 15th that baby will surely come out on the 16th. True enough, it all started around 2am on the 16th of April.I was watching Smallville with hubby and I started to feel mini cramps on my lower abdomen. Could it be the beginning of contraction pain? I have no idea because this pain is different than the contraction pain that I experienced with my 2nd girl.

Hubby told Baby if he wants to come out, please let him sleep first for at least 8 hours. So we went to bed around 2.30am.

At around 5am, I felt it again but I was in between reality and dreaming. Was I dreaming of having contraction pain? Was it for real? This is because I dreamed of having contraction pain before.

The next thing I know, my alarm triggered; time to wake the girls up to go to school. The pain is more intense and comes every 5 mins. Yay! IT IS contraction. I am going to give birth today! PTL that my pain is just like period cramp, very bearable.

I get the maid to help me out getting my girls ready for kindy and hubby to send them to kindy while I get ready to go to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital around 9am and I walked all by myself, holding my tummy to the delivery ward while hubby looks for a parking space.

I checked myself in and the nurse asked me to change into their pink delivery garment. First internal check by the midwife, I am 6cm dilated. Then she called a doctor to do the 2nd internal check (i think this is their procedure before pushing me to the labor room). The doctor press, press my tummy saying that my baby is small. Then she did the internal check and this time she said it is in between 7-8cm dilated. “Push her to the labor room now, she can give birth already.” she told the nurse around.

I was like, “Really, but I am not really in pain. I have no urge to push yet.” So I thought, “Ok, maybe after they rupture my water bag, I will feel the urge to push.” Just like how they did it during the birth of my son.

I was wheeled (i can walk there by myself but the nurse insisted to wheel me there) to labor room 5 but there was another patient there still being stitched so, I waited for about 10 minutes.

At 10am, a Chinese midwife came in and told me to push when I feel pain. Then she waited. I was expecting her to rupture my water bag but she did not do that. Surprisingly, the contraction pain did not come that fast. She raised her voice at me, “No pain arh? You feel pain, Push!” I wonder whether she is against a Chinese who does not speak Chinese. I told her I can’t speak Chinese because she spoke to me in Mandarin the moment she saw me.

Where is my hubby? He is supposed to come in by now.

Right after that, the pain came so I pushed. Then stopped. No more pain mah; no urge to push also. Then the midwife stimulates my cervix and asked me to push when I feel pain again. Even though I feel no pain and no urge to push, I push with all my heart and with all my might just to get this over with and get her out of my face!

During the pushing, I did scream to give more power to the pushing and got scolded by the midwife. It is the rules; you cannot scream or shout when pushing. And each time I push, my right leg tend to close up a lil bit and the midwife scolded me again and kept pushing it apart. After the birth, I find difficultly lifting that right leg without feeling pain.

At 10.10am, I feel baby slide out from my down under. No pain at all because baby is small but surprisingly, he weighs 3.15kg, the heaviest among his siblings. And the happiest moment was to see “balls” instead of “apam”.

The moment the nurse places baby on my tummy, hubby appeared. I think arh, the midwife purposely did not inform the nurse to call my hubby in earlier. If hubby is around, I don’t think she will raise her voice at me.

The stitching was done very rough too but I dare not say a word because I scared that she will pull harder! With my other 3 children, I got a very caring, gentle and friendly Malay midwife. What an experience! Now I understand why many refused to give birth in government hospital.

Whatever it is, everything is over and I am blessed with a healthy and perfect baby boy. And I even thank the midwife for helping me to deliver Baby Ezra.

For the birth story of my other 3 children, click here.