7 Months Later

Wow... It's been almost 7 months since my last post. Just to update, baby M arrived on Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 3:03 am. He was my Mother's Day gift :). The nurses gave him a bath and dressed him in a little body suit and brought him to me. They asked if I wanted to hold my baby but I politely declined... I was too exhausted even to smile. So I gave him a kissie on his cheek and sent him outside to meet the family :-p

There's a reason why no one talks about their labor room experience... they don't want to scare the living daylights out of the happy, expectant mom. But, for the uninitiated here's a condensed version of what I went through. After attending my boss's farewell on May 11th, I started experiencing the first signs of labor so I told Mr. F to head to the hospital. But Mr. F for some reason best known to himself refused, saying we should wait until morning... I panicked, called my mom and we headed to the hospital :P. Mr. F grudgingly followed.

What follows is pretty gross, but most expecting mommies probably go through it at some point. First, they give an enema... basically injecting your butt with a salt water solution to empty out the intestines.. ewww... :p

After multiple trips to the restroom, they hook you up to foetal monitors to check on the baby's heart rate and frequency of contractions. In my case, contractions weren't progressing (a contractions basically feels like your tummy's being scrunched) and usually with increasing force and frequency) so they inserted a tablet in the birth canal. That didn't work either, so finally I got induced with a medicine called sentosynol to speed things up. At that point, I was begging for an epidural but Mr. F refused point blank saying I should read a dua which helped his friend's wife (tough love?!!). So I finally dragged myself to the reception and asked them for an epidural. The nurse took pity on me and took me to the labor room.

The labor room was rather different from what I expected..
a. The bed had saddles
b. The bed was in 2 pieces

I still had no clue what was coming. I changed into scrubs and made myself comfortable (or as comfortable as you can be in that situation). A surgeon came and told me to sit still for a couple of minutes (not an easy task) but I managed it and he stuck the needle into my spine (I could feel it between the bone... ouch). Shortly after, I had an hour of rest and relaxation... Comfortably numb, I texted my best friend and had a chat with my cousin...

Around midnight, the contractions got worse and the epidural began to wear off... but, the end was near or so the nurses kept saying. At 10 minutes to 3, they separated the bed and pulled a piece away, legs went into the saddle and the labor room turned into a stadium with the nurses and the doctor cheering me on :-P (again, they never show this in the movies!). A few pushes later, baby M was here.

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