My Labor Story - Part 2

Read the part 1 of my labor story first if you haven't because this is the continuation of it. Let's continue!

After I was wheeled into the OT, I was greeted by my anesthetist and he explained again that I would be half paralysis during the operation which meant I was completely awake when they operate me. Before this I've heard about how painful the anesthetic jab and how the needle is long etc. Truth is I didn't know how long the needle was because the jab was at my back at spinal cord I think. At that point, I was not planning to ask him to show me the needle. 

I was told to hug a big pillow while he injected me. Before I knew it, the jab was done and pain free. Then within seconds, I started to lose feeling on my legs. It felt heavy then numb and I couldn't move after that.

Doctors were coming in and started to operate me. I could feel something tugging at my skin when they sliced me up and working to deliver my baby. But I was pain free. However, my body was shivering so hard that I worried if this is the side effect of anesthetic so I ask the anesthetist and he told me because it was cold inside the theater room. Duh!

He kept talking to me while I was cut open. At one point he even hold my hand because I was shivering like crazy. He also put some hot air to me through a vacuum lookalike pipe. I kept looking at the clock on the wall and saw that we're already half an hour into the operation. 

The clock struck 10 am and yet I hear nothing from the doctors that operating me. In fact, they were discussing something else. You know how in movie the doctor will announce "it's a baby girl/boy" with glee after your baby is out and will follow by the baby cry.

Well, no such thing happened to me. In fact, the doctors were cleaning and stitching me up straightaway and I saw/heard no sign of baby. Some ugly scenarios played in my mind and I got really worried. 

Then suddenly another doctor walked over to me and holding a small slimy creature. I was beyond relief and so ready for my skin to skin session with my baby. But the doctor was holding my baby tight and asked me the gender of my baby.

I said girl and she showed me my baby private part. Yup, it's a girl. But the doctor still holding her tight. The anesthetist told her to pass the baby to me for skin to skin interaction but the paed said no because they need to rush her to nursery because she's eating her waste in my tummy.

So I only got to peck her lightly before she took her away. I was cleaned up and rolled outside of OT. I was excited to see my family but they still need to keep me for half an hour before releasing me.

Meet the fruit of my labor

The first thing I saw when they rolled me out to transfer me to ward were the happy grin on my family's faces. My mom said baby cried so loud when they took her to nursery. I was kept bedridden for 6 hours and baby was kept in nursery for 7 hours.

My first proper look at her 

My first night as a mother was a great nightmare. I was unable to move freely because I had drips attached to both of my hands. But baby was crying so I still had to pick her up and cradle her. She is so small and fragile that I scared I might dropped her.

I tried to latch her for the first time and I was really clueless. There's nobody to teach me and baby is not latching. She kept crying and crying. It was closed to midnight and the ward was filled with her cry. I tried again and again to latch her until she's finally success. But I think she only got colostrum from me and my milk still not fully kicking in yet.

She's hungry and I was tired and my hands were hurt from the needles moving in my vein because I moved too much. I kept baby close in my arm and tried to rock her to sleep. I almost got heart attack when I glanced to my left side because my bed was drenched in blood. Wtf. 

I thought I bled or my incision was open. Turned out it was from my hand. The drip needle came off and blood came out. I called for the nurse but nobody can hear my over my baby cry. Lucky another lady opposite me saw the blood and called the nurse for me.

They had to reinsert the needle and at this point I already had 4 insertion points.

Baby was still crying, so I couldn't put her down. Nurse even came to help me to soothe baby but we concluded that she's hungry. At close to 3 am, the nurse came and told me she will feed baby but only for one time. Then I continued to latch baby on and off for the rest of the night. I didn't even get any sleep for the first night because I couldn't put baby down. Nurse warned me to put her down or else she will get used to being cradle the whole time. But I ignored her anyway.

Her first bath and she cried her lung out

Hailey one day old

This is my stomach 5 days postpartum, I still looked pregnant wtf.

And that is my first labor experience. It is not as daunting as what I always heard people say. Although there are some unpleasant occurrence but it is still okay for me. Heck, confinement is 10 times harder than this. So confinement story will come soon!

My Labor Story - Part 1

2 months postpartum and I'm finally able to jot down my labor story here. Sorry for the long hiatus, I'm still adjusting to my new role as a mom. I was doing live update from my Dayre that day because I afraid that I will forget some of the details. As I mentioned in my third trimester update I opted to deliver my baby via elective C-section because she's breech. Since it is confirmed that I chose C-section, the doctor arranged for my operation 2 weeks earlier than my EDD. They scheduled the operation on 13 Dec 2016. The date was selected by the hospital based on the available slot. 

My total weight gain from the pregnancy is 12kg. My baby is 3.05kg so I have around 9kg to shed but 2 months postpartum, my weight is stagnant at 50kg. I'm hoping to lose at least 3kg more but I can't get back to work out now and diet is not an option because breastfeeding makes me hungry all the time. But it's okay, one step at a time for me. Once I pass 6 months postpartum, I'm gonna go back to doing cardio and yoga.

I was admitted to hospital a day prior to my operation because they need to put me on IV drips overnight and monitor my baby. So on the 12th December, I woke up early to wash my hair thoroughly before I'm going into confinement, had breakfast with my husband and mother in law before we went to the hospital.

I gave birth at General Hospital because everyone around me encouraged me to do so. The main reason is because GH (General Hospital) have advance equipment and the specialists. Another reason is because the private hospital in Sibu tends to reject high risk case (not that my case is high risk) and in case anything happens, the private hospital will refer it to GH too. 

Doing CTG to monitor baby heart beat. All is fine and good.

Preparing for the IV drip

I didn't expect to be stuck with needle (don't know the exact term for the above procedure) so many times. The doctor prepped me and told me that they will insert one each on both of my hands but only use one for IV drip and the other one acts as standby in case something happens during my C-section and they need to do blood transfer etc. Man, it hurt when the doctor insert the needle. The needle is at least 5cm long and any movement from my hand will trigger discomfort.

But the pain from the insertion of the needle above is peanut if compared to the injection that I got to make my baby lung mature. I received two injections for that in the span of 12 hours. I consider my pain tolerance level quite high because I have no problem with injection all through my pregnancy. This injection takes the cake. Once the doctor pushed the medicine in, I can feel the pain slowly seeping in and it lasted for half an hour. At night when the nurse gave me the second dose, it hurt so bad that I sobbed and called my husband.

I spent one night at the labor ward and 2 nights at the maternity ward

You know how they always say that the doctors and nurses at GH are fierce and unfriendly, so I was mentally prepared for all these. But I had none bad encounter with the doctors or the nurses. Everyone was so helpful and nice although I had witnessed a rude nurse talking to a patient there. It wasn't rude per se, just that she could've more sympathy with the new mom. The new mom was sobbing because her baby is taken to NICU due to a heart condition. The nurse was demonstrating breastfeeding technique to us (she sucks at it by the way) but the new mom was on phone sobbing to probably her husband. 

The nurse stopped her and said "Stop talking on the phone and listen to me. It's not like your baby is going to die anyway. It is just a minor condition." She kept using the word die while talking to the new mom.

Walao can she has more sympathy towards the new mom? And why would she kept dropping the word 'die' every time she talked to that new mom. It is not helpful at all and not to mention unprofessional.

Me on my bed

Although the service and medical equipment are great at GH, I wouldn't say the same about their basic facilities especially the washroom. You know how mothers in labor are sometimes bleeding or their water broke, the washroom smell like blood. I'm not kidding. Some of the lock on the door are broken, flush broken too and the floor is covered in water (disgusting!) because of blocked drainage. Luckily during my 4D3N stay there, I didn't shower and I was put on catheter after my C-section, so no need to go to toilet. I really hope they can improve the washroom condition otherwise it will be on par with private hospital.

Binge watching The Big Bang Theory to pass the time

Visitors are not allowed into the ward outside of visitation hour, so I was really boring and finished the whole series of The Big Bang Theory. My parents and sister wanted to visit me but they're not allowed in.

So I walked out to see them hahahah

I hugged my tab with me because I didn't want to leave valuable items unguarded in the ward. It would have been better if visitors are allowed in outside of visitation hour because after my operation, I was not allowed to get off bed for 6 hours. But at the same time, I was told to drink more water. How to get water if I can't get up from bed ='= I had to stretch my arm as far as I can to grab my water bottle.

Husband came in to see me at every visiting hour

The visiting hours are 6am-7.30am, 12.30 noon till 2 and 5.30 till 7pm if my memory didn't failed me. Husband came in to bring me food because I don't want to take hospital food. On the first day, I told the husband that I'll eat the hospital food because I saw that they gave fried fish and veggies when I was doing my admission, so I expected dinner will be good too. 

Turned out dinner is tempe which I don't like and steamed egg only. So I sent husband to get me take out. Since then, I straight away rejected hospital food.

On the first night, the nurse inserted another needle to my left hand but she got it wrong and resulted in my swollen vein. So she had to do it all over again. I had no choice but to face the pain again. Throughout my whole stay, they inserted the needle 5 times on my left hand and 3 times on my right.

Besides the nurse wrongly inserting the needle, the other times they had to reinsert the needle because it fell off. I guess I was too active but trust me, when you had needles on your both hands, it was hard to do anything even texting. I fidgeted a lot and the needle moved. 

I couldn't sleep well on the first night not because I was worry about my operation in the morning but because I was uncomfortable and the nurses were doing round check every 3-4 hours I think. The sound of footsteps, trolleys and chitchatting woke me up. But I'm glad for it because if it was dead quiet, I would be scare to death. 

During the second injection for the medicine to mature my baby lung, I was sobbing non stop and feeling so emotional that it scared my husband. At this point, I was feeling vulnerable and the support of your other half is really important because you two are in this together. I kept scolding him why am I alone suffering during this birth process? I felt so alone that first night. But that's not the worst night. let me tell you about my second night (post labor) later.

I was told to fast after 10pm to prepare my body for surgery in the morning. Around 1am, I was feeling cramp on my lower abdominal. At first I thought it was contraction or maybe Braxton Hicks but the cramp subsided after I went to pee. Full bladder perhaps but the pain came back again at 4am that I called the nurse. She checked and confirmed to me that it is not contraction pain.

Bad photo but my wrist was swollen like a golf ball because I moved too much and the IV needle moved too.

It was the second day morning already but the doctor haven't confirm my operation time yet. At this point, I was restless and just wanted the baby out of me. I kept asking the doctor to confirm the time but they told me need to wait for the surgeon to confirm. They only confirmed the time an hour prior to my surgery.

Before I was wheeled into surgery room, a group of trainees asked if they could examine my bump. Just a general examine. Actually only a girl asked and after I said yes, a group of trainees showed up. It was quite awkward having so many people taking turn to touch my bump. They wanted to know where the head, limp etc.

My surgery was scheduled at 9am and they wheeled me to OT before 9am. Outside the ward, my parents and husband were waiting for me. I was rather excited to finally meet my baby actually and I didn't feel nervous at all. My mom on the hand was tearing ='= she kept telling me not to be afraid. I exchanged a few more words with them before the nurses wheeled me to OT.

Inside the operation theater was freezing cold.  I only had thin layer of hospital gown on. I was shivering while the nurse parked me along other patients waiting for surgery. Finally it was my turn after I waited for like forever. 

Didn't mean for this to be cliffhanger but I'll continue the post on part 2 soon because it is getting too long and this new mom needs to rest.