MY CHILDBIRTH - BELIEVE IT OR NOT?

Everytime I hear of somebody I know about to give birth, it always brings back memories of my own childbirth without fail, as my labour wasn't what I would call a 'normal' one, compared to all my friends. These memories are back with me again today when I heard my niece is giving birth to her first baby tomorrow, or rather, later this evening….

ONSET OF LABOUR?
It was in the evening of 1st January 1997 when I started to have contractions, which got more frequent around 8pm, coming at 2-4 minutes intervals. I told my husband that I think the time was near and we better head off to the hospital. Upon arrival at the hospital, I was examined by the nurse and informed that indeed I had dilated around 2cm, which indicated labour was on the way. So I was admitted into the labour ward to be monitored. Throughout the night, contractions continued to occur quite frequently, tolerable but making it difficult for me to sleep, more so with the nurse coming in now and then to check on my dilation. Next day, early in the morning, the nurse informed me that my gynaecologist had been informed and I am to be prepared for delivery, so the whole works of giving enema and shaving were done. The doctor came around 8:30am, gave me an examination and calmly asked, ‘how do you feel about going home?’ I was like, ‘huh? I am in labour here, sir’, but being the ignorant first-time mother that I was, I just asked meekly, ‘why?’ Doc replied, ‘well, look like your baby is not ‘low’ enough, and your dilation is still only 2cm, despite the contractions throughout the night. You are not opening up. If I induced you, it will be a painful birth for you and I don’t advise it because if a fruit is not ripe, you do not pluck it.’ (You see, I was in Assunta Hospital, a Christian hospital, and they do not believe in inducing or epidural and caesarean is the last option.) So what can I say in response to that but to quietly get up and get ready to go home, although with doubt in my mind? Even when I was standing at the nurse counter while checking out, the contractions were still coming on strong and I asked the nurse, ‘why did the doctor ask me to go home? I’m in pain.’ The nurse looked at me and just quietly said, ‘I also don’t know.’

COUNTING THE SECONDS
When I reached home, my contractions were still coming on, although at more erratic intervals. What it meant was that I could hardly do anything else except lay in bed and, out of boredom, started timing every single contraction and noting down the time intervals by the seconds on a long strip of paper! :-) In between all these, I kept getting phone calls from my concerned colleagues and ex-boss who were asking why I was not in hospital and threatening to come straight to my house and take me back to the hospital everytime I ‘spasm-ed’ with pain in between my conversation with them when the contractions came on. It goes something like, ‘blah, blah, blah, … (then suddenly), aiyak, aiyak, (in pain)…’ every other minute. (Thinking back it was actually quite funny, although it wasn't then!) All these meant that I couldn’t sleep at all, so much so that my husband, who is usually quite a gentleman, called one of my colleagues and asked them not to call anymore as I needed to rest, not that I could do so! And this happened right through the day of 2nd January 1997.

THE REAL LABOUR?
It wasn’t until around 8pm (again) that day when the labour pain became more acute and intolerable that I told my husband, ‘please, take me back to the hospital, don’t care if ‘pai sei’ (shameful), checking in and out of hospital over a period of less than 24 hours.’ So off we go again, but this time, the pain was so intense, I could hardly sit down properly and my husband commented, ‘hey, I think this is the real thing, yesterday you can still talk, now you are in just so much pain’.

When we arrived, it was the same nurses on duty, and I always wondered whether they did snigger behind our backs when we checked in again. :-) Anyway, after ‘feeling’ my contractions, the nurse said she think I was really ready this time and I was put into the delivery room immediately instead of in the labour ward (after all, I have already been 'prepared' the day before). ;-) This was around 10pm. And we waited (contraction), and waited (contraction), and waited (contraction) ….. (and during this time, we could hear this Indian lady in the next room, screaming away in pain and it was quite scarry!)

THE DELIVERY!
Then way after midnight, the pain started getting even more and more intense, and I was in real, real labour in the early morn. The pain was beyond description and I was given two doses of painkiller to relax me in between my contractions, so that my muscle will not tighten up, and impedes the dilation. My good husband was with me in the delivery room and was ‘helping’ me to breathe … hei, hei, hurgh…, hei hei hurgh,…. throughout the whole labour. (You see, we attended the pre-natal classes where we were taught how to breathe in and out during labour, and husbands were encourage to ‘guide’ the wife during the labour as she might be so much pain, that she forgot about the rhythmic breathing which will help in the delivery!) After all these, my girl finally decided to show up at 10:50am on 3rd January 1997, after close to 40 hours of labour and hardly a wink by her poor mother! (Left: Picture of my bright-eyed baby - well worth all the pain and sleepless hours!)

FLAT OUT
I was so tired by the time the delivery was over that all I could managed was to take a look at my little girl, with her beautiful eyes so wide opened, and to hold her briefly before I just fell straight into slumberland. I vaguely remembered being cleaned by the nurse and somebody (not sure if it’s my husband) feeding me some porridge. And all of this is because in the 40 hours since the onset of the labour, I hardly had slept a wink and I was totally drained when it was all over.

THE FUNNY SIDE
When I saw my husband after I woke up, his voice was all hoarse as if he was going to lose his voice! ‘What happened?’, I asked and he said it was because of all the ‘breathing in and out’ that he had to do, and not drinking any water throughout the labour! hahahaha

My husband told me, in between my contractions, I was so tired, that I was actually snoring!!! It was like …. aiyak!, aiyak!, zzzzz…, zzzzz…. aiyak!, aiyak!, zzzz…., zzzz….. and the whole time I was clutching so tightly onto his thumb, my nails were cutting into him! The poor man showed me his thumb and indeed there as a deep red line there, but at that time, he wasn’t conscious of the pain because he was so caught in the moments, too!

CHINESE PANTANG (BELIEF)
Days later, when I related my experience to my confinement lady, this first thing she asked was, ‘did you shut off or closed anything important at home when you went to the hospital?’ ‘Why?’, I asked. She related the case of another of her charge whereby the wife was also having a very long labour in the hospital, and like me, was also not ‘opening up’. Then one of the older family members asked the husband to go home quickly and open the main door, all the windows and switch on all the lights. So he quickly rushed home and did as ordered and before he could make it back to the hospital, the wife had already delivered! You see, apparently, there is a Chinese pantang that we should not close everything in the house when the lady of the house is in labour as otherwise she will not ‘open up’ and hence a long labour!

DO YOU BELIEVE IT OR NOT?
So we got thinking and guess what? We realised when we set off to the hospital, we actually turned off our main water pipe!! You see, we have been having a leaking main water pipe which was underground when I was pregnant. According to Chinese pantang, we cannot do any digging when pregnant so as not to jeopardise the pregnancy so what we’ve been doing for the duration of my pregnancy was that we will turn on the main pipe when we return from work in the evening and turned it off when we went to bed. So on the faithful night of 1st Jan, we turned it off before setting off to the hospital. When I checked out the next day, 2nd Jan, I turned it on again when we reached home. However, on the evening of 2nd Jan when we had to go to hospital again, we totally forgot to turn it off again in the midst of all the pain! So what my confinement lady believed was that because I turned off the main water pipe on the first night, my dilation wasn’t opening up further, until I came back the next day and open it up again! And that might be the cause of my long labour, not that my girl was reluctant to see the world until 3rd Jan 1997! Hahahaha

Do you believe it or not?

12-09-2009