Baby In Da Hood

Hola!

I should be taking a nap right now since the baby is sleeping but my mind wanders around. I suddenly recalled back the time Manja was born, what a long day it was. Alhamdulillah she is already 41 days today and she has grown a lot! Was browsing through her photos when she was a days old, my God what a difference ;) She is much more clever now and taking care of her has been good compared to a few weeks before. I guess maybe cuz I'm much stronger now. I'm about to be done with my confinement now so I'll be going back to Subang in a few days time. Kinda sad cuz no more maktok and wan to help me around with Manja. It's gonna be just mummy and daddy huhuhu...

So, labour signs started to kick in on 3rd December 2012 with mild contraction. Because it wasn't regular I did not wanna rush to the hospital yet thinking it could be false alarm. On the next morning (4th Dec) I woke up as usual to get ready for Subuh prayer, went to the loo and saw some blood. Immediately woke Mr D up and called mama. Because there was no pain, I did not panic and asked Mr D to bring to the clinic. Hearing the news, my parents immediately made their way to Subang from Alor Setar. So we went to the clinic and I insisted for the doctor to check whether I have dilated and it turned out that I haven't. It could take a few more days.

After my parents arrived that afternoon we went for lunch and Mr D went straight to work. After taking a nap that afternoon, I started to feel a stronger contraction but it was still mild. It repeated for every half an hour or so but was not painful. Just after Maghrib the contraction became more frequent and got stronger. I told my parents that if it gets stronger in about 2-3 hours then we'll head to the hospital. By the time Mr D came home which was about 9pm we told him to freshen up as we'll be going to the hospital in about 1-2 hours time.

After freshen up, we head to the hospital at about 11pm. Reached there close to midnight and got myself examined. The obgyn told me that I was already 4cm dilated and scolded me for not coming to the hospital earlier. Because there was no bed available the nurses asked me to wait around. So I hanged around the lobby with my parents and Mr D till about 2am and got called to be admitted to the ward.

At about 4am, the nurses told me to inform Mr D that I was going to be brought to the labour room soon. The pain started to become stronger. So after being hooked up to the machines and got my water broken my husband came to stay with me. I can see that he was nervous, tired, and sleepy. He tried to chat with me to ease the pain and to stay awake but I was in so much pain that I could not even utter a word. Told him to just nap while he can. It was definitely a long wait as at 6am I was still only 6cm dilated. It was so disappointing as I could not bear with the pain anymore. I couldn't even move around.

Of course being into labour for the first time I did not know what to expect next. I asked the nurse how can I tell if it's the time push and she told me that I'll feel like I'm going to 'berak'. OK, understood. At about 7.30am I was in so much pain and felt the urge to 'berak' so immediately press the call-button. The nurses and the doctor came in to check and I was 9cm dilated and immediately told me that it's time to push. Now I thought I knew how to push correctly as I've seen a couple of tutorials on YouTube but because there were so much support from the nurses I panic and just followed what they said. It was definitely a struggle as they told me I wasn't pushing right cuz my face turned red. I was also told not to waste my energy by screaming or opening my mouth but I couldn't help it.

After several failed pushes, the doctor sort of threatened me to use vacuum instead. Now everybody know what will happen to the baby's head if vacuum method is used. But at that point, honestly, I couldn't care less cuz I was already tired and did not know how to push right anymore. I gave up basically. So at the last push (of course I didn't know it was the last push) I gave it all and passed out for a few miliseconds. Because before I knew it I felt a warm and heavy sensation on my chest. When I opened my eyes there she is! Alhamdulillah...She was born at 8.23am. After cutting the chord, Mr D recite the Azan to her ears and they brought the baby and Mr D out of the labour room. Then the whole removing the placenta and fixing the episiotomy took forever and I was high on sleeping gas.

I was only brought to the ward at about 2pm as they need to monitor me and the baby after the labour. Our parents and relative came during the noon visiting hours but since I was still stuck in the the labour room they could see me and the baby. So they went back. I left my phone in the old ward so only him had to make calls and such till his phone died. After moving to the ward, I told Mr D to take a shower and nap until the next visiting hours at 4.30pm. But both of us were so overwhelmed we couldn't sleep. We kept on chatting, announcing stuff on facebook and such. Family and friends came to visit around 5pm and hang around till 7pm.

I was warded for 4 days as I had lost a lot of blood. I was given 2 pints of blood and almost had a seizure attack the day after baby was born. I couldn't even walk to the bathroom. But alhamdulillah, things got better and I was released. Alhamdulillah....