Parenting, Pregnancy

Baby E – The Birth Story

Can’t believe it has been almost 2 weeks since Elise’s arrival! I still remember Laurent urging me to go to the hospital 2 weeks ago so that his baby sis can “come out”. And he officially got promoted to become Big Brother the very next day!

When I went for my 38 week check up about a month back, Dr Choo told me I’m already 1-2cm dilated and baby’s head was pretty low. That explains all the pelvic pressure I was experiencing. The next evening, I went for my last media event in town and suddenly felt some consistent stomach tightening while having dinner. I’ve been experiencing Braxton Hicks since the end of 2nd trimester, so I honestly couldn’t tell if the consistent stomach tightening was still BH or the real deal.

Wayne has been worried that my delivery this time will be so fast that I will give birth at home or on the way to the hospital, so we decided to just head down to the hospital for a check.

The nurses did a check and put me on CTG monitoring for an hour and my dilation was still ard 2cm and I was experiencing some contractions which were quite far apart. In conclusion, we’re pretty confident that baby won’t be arriving so soon, so we got to go home that night.

The most excited (and I guess also the most disappointed) amongst us during that false alarm episode was probably Laurent – he kept asking if his baby sis is arriving that night. We told him to ask baby when she will be arriving and he said “Sunday. Not this Sunday but the next one!”

The week went by quite uneventfully. But at my week 39 check-up, I’ve further dilated to 2-3cm and baby’s head was even lower. Dr Choo told us that all we have to do is break the water bag and baby can arrive anytime. We decided to give her the weekend to see if things progress on it’s own, otherwise we’ll go in for another check on Monday morning.

On Sat morning, I managed to still attend a hypnobirthing workshop which I had signed up for earlier on but was doubtful if I could actually attend. Wayne was worried that I might go into labor there, which I told him, “That’s even better! I will have some of the best doulas and midwives at the event to assist me in the delivery!”

So glad that I was able to make it for the workshop because I met Uma and Isa from Mother & Child and had a great chat with them and heard some really amazing hypnobirthing testimonials – including naturally delivering a 4.2kg baby!

We had a play date with Serene’s family on sat afternoon and a visited the Dentist on Sunday and nope, still no water bag breaking of bloody show. I did feel some surges, but they were still far apart and inconsistent.

Held Laurent against my baby bump for one more time because we’re pretty sure baby will be coming the next day.

We dropped Laurent off in school at 7am in the morning and went to the hospital to check for any labour progress.

I was 3-4cm dilated then so we gave the go ahead to burst the water bag ard 845am and just chill in the delivery suite, waiting for my contractions to pick up.

Wayne settles himself comfortably in the companion arm chair and watched movies while I listened to my visualisations and recorded some IG stories (you can see them on my IG highlights – Birth Story).

My contractions slowly picked up and honestly, they felt like surges to me and wasn’t really painful or distressing. I could still talk through the surges and didn’t need any pain relief. In fact, I was looking forward to the surges because I know the closer they become, the shorter the labor process and the faster I’ll be holding baby in my arms!

The nurses did a check for me at 12pm and I was 5cm dilated with contractions ard 5 mins apart. We thought it’ll take a while before I progress to 9cm, but I could already feel a lot of pressure below. We did another check at 1230pm and I have already progressed to 7cm. By 1245pm, I was urging the nurse to call Dr Choo up. She was pretty adamant that I couldn’t have progressed that fast but I told her to do another check immediately or she might have to end up delivering for me. She was surprised to see that I was indeed already 9cm dilated and literally RAN off to call Dr Choo. Wayne JUST finished his lobster stir-fry lunch then.

When Dr Choo came, she quickly don on her scrub and when she turned to look at me, she told me we could already see baby’s hair! For the first push, she told me to take a deep breath, hold it and divert the energy down to push the baby out – the usual way. But when she realised I was using the J-breath to breathe the baby out, she immediately caught on and told me to continue breathing when my surges come. We took about 3-4 breaths for Elise to come out and I could feel her just sliding out of me. There was definitely pressure during the “pushing” phase but I didn’t feel any acute pain.

Wayne even got to cut the umbilical cord this time round and I believe it was quite a memorable experience for him!

While they cleaned up baby, Dr Choo said, “You were doing hypnobirthing and you managed to breathe your baby out so smoothly! And you know what – you have no tear and did not needed any episiotomy!”

Hallelujah!!

I remembered the most uncomfortable part of Laurent’s birth was the stitching where I could feel all the tugging, pulling and even some pain because I didn’t have epidural then as well. And I was so worried about taking my first pee and first poop after that.

I got to enjoy some skin to skin with Elise after they took her stats (3030g, 49cm) and she even managed to latch like a champ. Probably because it was a drug free and relatively short birth, Elise was very alert and interactive immediately after birth.

I got to eat my lunch after 45 mins skin-to-skin with Elise (I was famished by then!) and was up and walking around the ward after they wheeled me in once I was done with lunch.

After I posted my IG stories about my birthing experience, I received a number of DMs asking how come I can still talk and look so calm at 5cm dilated and even when I was going through a contraction.

The short answer is Hypnobirthing.

The name may sound woo-woo to some people but there are a lot of psychological and scientific explanations backing up why it works. I suggest reading up and going for courses to truly understand it better.

I was already practising some of the concepts for Laurent’s delivery which really helped me to be calm and relaxed during the birthing experience, despite being a FTM then. I didn’t manage to attend any proper hypnobirthing classes, but I read books, watched videos and listened to visualisations and affirmations for a good part of my pregnancy this time.

While I felt it was useful to equip myself with the hypnobirthing toolbox, I believe it was ultimately by God’s grace that everything happened so smoothly and safely.

Before my pregnancy, a friend introduced a book to me after knowing about my pregnancy with Ellie. I read/ listened to Jackie Mize’s Supernatural Childbirth almost everyday during my pregnancy and felt assured by God’s words about His blessings towards the pregnancy, my safety, baby’s well-being and the delivery process being a smooth and “supernatural” one.

I’m very very thankful for this birth experience. I didn’t think it was possible, but it was even more enjoyable than Laurent’s birth! While most people associate birthing process with the mummies only, I believe it is also a very important milestone and experience for daddies. I’m thankful that it was a relaxing process for Wayne as well and he was raving about hypnobirthing after that. Well, I can see why… I mean all he did was have Starbucks for breakfast, movie and chill the morning away and ate a lobster lunch. Then ta-da the baby is out. Hey… how awesome was that lol. But honestly, if you have the chance to take a hypnobirthing course, definitely bring the Husband along because there is so much for them to learn about the birthing process as well 🙂

Ok I didn’t expect the birth story to end up being such a long one, but I really wanted to note down every single detail as much as I can. I find myself reading Laurent’s birth story a lot before my delivery this time and would have forgotten a lot of little details if I had not noted them down. I also wanted to share this because I truly believe, and have experienced twice, that child birth did not have to be painful and traumatising as depicted on TV.

If you’re looking for some resources relating to child birth, here are some that I would recommend.

Resources:

December 9, 2018

daprayerfp@gmail.com

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