The Birth of Nadia

As of today, Nadia is 13 months and 4 days old. It’s not hard to recall back her birth details. I guess all mothers don’t forget how their babies were born. My estimated due date (EDD) for Nadia was 12-Sept-08, she was born 5 days earlier on the 7^th.

At week 39, my belly is getting heavier and I felt so uncomfortable already, walking, sitting and sleeping became so hard. In my mind I did wish that I can give birth that week, as my OB would be away on holiday during my EDD. During my week 39 checkup (on 6^th Sept 08 to be exact), there was signs of labour already, and OB let me go for the contraction monitor scan (I don’t know the medical term for this) to look at the contraction rate. OB asked me to get ready, it could happen within a few days though. I was happy there were signs and hoped that I could give birth on that day.

As I reached home from the checkup, I started to walk around the house non stop in hope to trigger the labour faster. That night I can’t sleep, kept tossing and turning. At 2am, my water broke. I woke my husband, and he was pretty anxious and quickly grabbed my hospital bag (which I prepared a few weeks earlier). I didn’t feel any pain, just water kept flowing out.

We reached the hospital quite fast, my husband handled the registration while I was brought into the labour room. After the nurse checked on me, she said it won’t be so soon to deliver yet, the contractions wasn’t close to each other. My husband went home to sleep. I didn’t feel any pain, and the contraction rate was so slow. My OB came in at 8.30am and insert pill to fasten the opening. It didn’t help much as my cervix opened at 1cm only even until noon. The nurse advised me to walk around. My husband was in the room with me already. When I walked around, the pain started to get stronger until I gave up walking. Another mother that was admitted in the morning that day, already gave birth to her baby girl at around 4pm. And I was still lying on my bed with slow contraction rate.

My OB called in and asked the nurse to put me on the drip. The drip started to kick in, and the contraction rate became faster and faster. I asked for epidural during this time. It had been more than 12 hours in the room, and baby still not coming out. About 10 minutes after the epidural was injected, my lower body became numb. That was at about 5pm already. I rested while my husband read the newspaper in the room.

At about 8pm, I could feel baby head emerging. And my OB came in to check on me at this time. He said I was ready to push. I can remember that while I was pushing, “Phua Chu Kang” show was on the TV, and I was still watching the show! I asked my husband to shut the TV so we can concentrate haha! My husband told me that the baby head came out half way only and I can’t seem to make any progress by pushing. So, the OB used vacuum to help the baby out. He put the baby in front of me once she was out.

Nadia came out smoothly at 8.45pm on 07^th Sept 08. She was 3.45kg in weight, 52cm in height, and 35.5cm for the head circumference. She was indeed pretty big, especially the head size. My husband and I were glad that there was no complication. We were officially upgraded to parents that day. Total hours in the labour room – 18 hours.