My first encounter with AJ (Part 1)

Ok. I admit that my first post was as boring as ever. So I decided to share with you my experience of giving birth for the first time.

******** Here comes the true event ******


"One more push, Margaret. Give me one more push. You can do it!" said Nicky, the midwife in charge of my labour that night.

"OMG, this is really painful. How long is this going to take? I wonder how my mom can give birth to four of us so easily as I'm struggling with my first one." I thought while pushing in pain. Well, three to be fair, another one was delivered thro' C-section.

12^th JAN 2008
4.00 AM.I was 6 days late from the expected date. With contractions of every 5 minutes (as according to the pregnancy bible), I wake Jimmy up and informed the maternity ward to tell my situation. I went to the hospital with my ready-packed bag. I was ushered into a delivery room when I reach the labour ward.

Karen (a kind Malaysian midwife), took my blood pressure again and again, then my temperature. I thought, my blood pressure must have been shooting high just like previously. She had two devices attached to my big stomach, one to examine the baby's heart rate and another to check my contractions. "Yes, it is every five minutes but we can't be sure that it is the time yet."

4.40AM. She made her excuse to get a doctor. Half an hour later, the contractions were not as often as before. "Doh. False alarm again", my instincts said. While waiting for the doctor, out of a sudden Jimmy stood up and walked to the device on my right. With his "doctor" smile, he examined the outcome of the graph resulted from the baby's heart rate and my contractions. Within minutes, he talked professionally (a doctor-wannabe but ended up becoming an engineer), "I think we might be heading home this time again, dear. False alarm". I nodded slowly and gave a weak smile.

5:20 AM. My contractions has weakened. Then, came in a new midwife (I called her Sarah - Don't blame me for forgetting her name). "Morning, Karen has finished her shift so I will be taking care of you from this point onwards. Let me check your blood pressure and temperature." She examined the graph while listening to my story. Then, she left. "Weird. Really weird. This visit has taken longer time than before. Normally, I will be discharged by this time." Silence...

6:05 AM. A Japanese doctor came in with Sarah. She's a pretty doctor, I said to Jimmy in Chinese. Jimmy replied, "You bet she is". Sarah checked my blood pressure and temperature again while the doctor read my file. The doc asked if I felt any dizzyness and further weird questions. She later explained that my blood pressure is still shooting high (146/90) and could lead to pre-ecclampsia, ecclampsia at later stage. I will turn into comma state and died if this is not treated. T_____T Blah blah blah...

Doc assured everything will be ok and wanted my blood sample taken for further laboratory examination. "This could take about an hour for the result to come back." As expected..."Meanwhile, your contractions has slowed down. Sarah, please examine Margaret's dilations and make a sweep if needed." She smiled and left.

Sarah, "Your contractions has slowed down. Your dilations is about 3 cm, which is good. I'll do a 'sweep'". Paused.. "Aaaahhhh, your baby's hair is very bushy and he's facing either to your right or left." she continued. "Oooh, he's kicking, isn't he?" I smiled and nodded. "Humn...he doesn't like me touching him. He keeps turning his head around."

7:30 AM. "Finally, I've got your result back."

to be continue...