Our Birthing Story
(finally getting around to writing it!)
So on the 26th July 2010, Reg leaves the house early for a shoot and I sleep in a little bit because I hardly got any sleep the night before. It was full-on tossing and turning and I had absolutely no idea why. I was work-from-home that day because we had an appointment with the OB after lunch.
So at around lunchtime, Reg comes home from the shoot (he had made arrangements to only be there in the morning) and we make our way to Greenbelt (as always) for lunch. To kill time since the doctor's office will be open at 2pm, we went walking around Greenbelt as a form of exercise for me. We even ran into Guia! :)
So finally it was time to head to the hospital. Prior to this, Reg had already been saying that he had this feeling that on this particular appointment, we were going to be told that it was time already. I, on the other hand, really had no inkling.
So it was the usual at the doctor's - until it was time for the IE (internal exam). So I was lying there thinking I probably hadn't started to dilate yet when the doctor's face kind of registered surprise and she said, "you're 3-4cm dilated!"
I went, "what?!" Guess the walking we did during the weekend helped. haha! Reg started smiling and going, I knew it! And then he started texting/bbm-ing all concerned parties. Haha!
The doctor writes out our admission order and she tells us that since we lived pretty near, we could still go home and fix up some stuff and to just come back once the contractions were regular.
Here's the problem - I wasn't feeling any pain. AT ALL. Which is why I didn't even know I was in labour. I had to ask how will I know when I'm contracting? They said, "when your stomach hardens, that's a contraction".
So we go on home, I wrap up work stuff and inform the office. We pack the last few things into our hospital bag (and here I thought Reg would've had to come back for these last few things if ever). My parents advise to walk some more so we wouldn't have a hard time during labour so we decided to head back to Greenbelt to do more power-walking while timing contractions.
Surprisingly, when we started to pay attention to my stomach hardening, it turns out that it was coming at 4-7min intervals. We time for about an hour and a half and then I got hungry so we got a little snack. In the end, I called my doctor's office who advised us to come in already. So we went home first and I took another bath and off to the hospital we went.
I was admitted to Makati Med's birthing room at about 6-630pm.
Makati Med's birthing room is extremely comfortable, I'm glad we decided to get it. It was big with a TV (uhhh but with limited channels. What the hell Cignal?!) and a living room set up. You get to have two companions with you at a time so when my family came, they came in two at a time to see me. :)
At this point, I am still about 3-4cm dilated and the nurses keep coming in to check if I was in pain. I wasn't, which was very surprising to all of them. Me too, actually. After a while, I was strapped to an IV.
About an hour or so after being admitted, there was another IE done and I was already 5cm dilated. At this time, I had started to feel some pain in my lower abdomen, kind of like cramps that would go away and come back. I had already known before coming that I would be asking for an epidural for labour so the nurses kept coming back to check to make sure I didn't want any. I really didn't, it was the kind of pain I could still handle and doing the breathing techniques from our birthing class really helped.
After another hour or so, another IE was done and I was 6cm dilated. My doctor comes in because she had arrived (hurriedly, said by my family, who saw her run in) and because I was progressing pretty rapidly, we all thought I'd give birth sometime during the night. I was then advised that because of my fast progress, I would have to get my epidural already because there may not be enough time later on, even if I could still handle the pain with no problem.
So I am given the epidural, which wasn't so bad. I had been scared shitless about this part because hello, a needle by your spine? The local anesthesia helped. :p I was sat up and held by an orderly and Reg to make sure I wouldn't move. And then I didn't feel anything anymore. Haha :p
At about 930pm, my doctor comes back in to do another IE and realizes I am still at 6cm. So they said they'll check again after two hours and urged me to sleep. I did try :) Two hours later, I am woken because the doctor has come back to the room for another IE and I am still at 6cm! Plus, my waters hadn't broken. So they try to burst my bag of waters to help speed up the process. Except they couldn't really because first, it was a little high up and it was attached to Tala's head so they were afraid of nicking Tala's head too. My doctor decides to try again in another two hours. In the meantime, I am informed that the monitors are tracking my contractions consistently at every two minutes and were strong.
Two hours later, I am still at 6cm. They try to break my bag of waters again, but again they had difficulty. My doctor says, another two hours and then we'll make some more decisions. In the end, I was stuck at 6cm for SIX HOURS! Finally at about 3:30am, and after another dose of pain meds, another IE check was done (which was actually late because people had fallen asleep hahaha) and they realize my bag of waters was gone. Of course I didn't feel anything (in hindsight, my doctor says they may have actually nicked the bag of waters during their attempts and must've leaked without any of us noticing). My doctor then had my bladder emptied.
After that, things started moving. I started to feel this different kind of pain in my groin that would leave me breathless as it came. The nurses said that this was the baby bearing down and that I was to inform them if the pain became too much that I would feel like I had to go to the bathroom. In the meantime, everyone else was getting the room ready for delivery and a nurse was with me practicing pushes. :p
Finally, there was that really big pain and I said, I think this is it. They add a bit more pain medicine and the pain subsided. They checked and agreed and then, the next thing I knew, it was time to push. I pushed for an hour or so. Because she was a little high, I had to get fundal support which meant someone was bearing down on my stomach with their full weight. This is where the problem started because every time they did that, I would get distracted by how I could not breathe. I could feel myself getting red from the effort of pushing and from trying to breathe. They all said after that I was turning so red and my doctor started to warn me about popping blood vessels on my face and eyes. They also said I was pushing wrong but I didn't have the strength to say that it was all because of that weight being pushed on me. Reg understood though, so he was there telling them to let me push first before they applied pressure on my abdomen. My mom was on my other side, coaching too. Tala on the other hand, would float back up after each push so I had to make sure I didn't let go of the push too quickly.
At some point though, that pain in my groin came back and it was the only thing I could feel. So I focused my attention on it and I remember just thinking, "push the pain out!". My mom was coaching, telling me that we were almost there. They had also finally gotten what Reg was saying, to let me push first. Now that I had something to focus on, everything came a little easier.
So after about three sets of those pushes, Tala came out at 5:42am. She cried a little and then started looking around the room with wide eyes. Haha :)
Maybe it was cause of the drugs, but I didn't cry when she came out. I remember just feeling extremely overjoyed that it was over and that I wanted to see her. I was asking Reg, she's ok? And my mom was looking at me telling me that Tala was so beautiful! They had taken her to the other part of the room to clean her (later on, my doctor tells me that she already had meconium stain when they took her out, so I guess that's why they had to clean her right away) and my mom and Reg were there looking at her. Finally, they came back with her and they had her latch on to me and we took our first family picture. :) I remember looking at her thinking, omigod, that's her! wow! wow!
Everything felt very surreal. :)
So they finally head off to the nursery with her to do more checks with Reg and the rest of my family in tow while the doctor stitched me up. I was so jazzed that I didn't fall asleep right away, I ended up being able to text people. Haha! And then I started to feel these tingling sensations all around my face and my arms and my back that distracted me so it took me a while to fall back to sleep. Apparently, these were the aftereffects of all the effort I made earlier from pushing.
I think I was in my room by about 8am that morning. Sometime later, they brought Tala in for breastfeeding and we both fell asleep. :) That was the first time I got to hold her for a long time! :) Sometime after lunch, my FILC girls came and they were able to catch Tala being brought back for another breastfeeding session (after this, I would walk to the nursery with Reg na for breastfeeding).
My family came back after getting some sleep at home and we also had visitors come at night :) And that's when Reg and I started the routine of waking up at about every few hours to walk to the nursery for breastfeeding. Haha :)
By the 29th of July, we were both declared in good health and were able to go home :)
Overall, that was about 12 hours of labour (I would count from when I was admitted to when she finally came out) :)
So on the 26th July 2010, Reg leaves the house early for a shoot and I sleep in a little bit because I hardly got any sleep the night before. It was full-on tossing and turning and I had absolutely no idea why. I was work-from-home that day because we had an appointment with the OB after lunch.
So at around lunchtime, Reg comes home from the shoot (he had made arrangements to only be there in the morning) and we make our way to Greenbelt (as always) for lunch. To kill time since the doctor's office will be open at 2pm, we went walking around Greenbelt as a form of exercise for me. We even ran into Guia! :)
So finally it was time to head to the hospital. Prior to this, Reg had already been saying that he had this feeling that on this particular appointment, we were going to be told that it was time already. I, on the other hand, really had no inkling.
So it was the usual at the doctor's - until it was time for the IE (internal exam). So I was lying there thinking I probably hadn't started to dilate yet when the doctor's face kind of registered surprise and she said, "you're 3-4cm dilated!"
I went, "what?!" Guess the walking we did during the weekend helped. haha! Reg started smiling and going, I knew it! And then he started texting/bbm-ing all concerned parties. Haha!
The doctor writes out our admission order and she tells us that since we lived pretty near, we could still go home and fix up some stuff and to just come back once the contractions were regular.
Here's the problem - I wasn't feeling any pain. AT ALL. Which is why I didn't even know I was in labour. I had to ask how will I know when I'm contracting? They said, "when your stomach hardens, that's a contraction".
So we go on home, I wrap up work stuff and inform the office. We pack the last few things into our hospital bag (and here I thought Reg would've had to come back for these last few things if ever). My parents advise to walk some more so we wouldn't have a hard time during labour so we decided to head back to Greenbelt to do more power-walking while timing contractions.
Surprisingly, when we started to pay attention to my stomach hardening, it turns out that it was coming at 4-7min intervals. We time for about an hour and a half and then I got hungry so we got a little snack. In the end, I called my doctor's office who advised us to come in already. So we went home first and I took another bath and off to the hospital we went.
I was admitted to Makati Med's birthing room at about 6-630pm.
 |
| at 3-4cm, looking all fat and bloated |
At this point, I am still about 3-4cm dilated and the nurses keep coming in to check if I was in pain. I wasn't, which was very surprising to all of them. Me too, actually. After a while, I was strapped to an IV.
About an hour or so after being admitted, there was another IE done and I was already 5cm dilated. At this time, I had started to feel some pain in my lower abdomen, kind of like cramps that would go away and come back. I had already known before coming that I would be asking for an epidural for labour so the nurses kept coming back to check to make sure I didn't want any. I really didn't, it was the kind of pain I could still handle and doing the breathing techniques from our birthing class really helped.
After another hour or so, another IE was done and I was 6cm dilated. My doctor comes in because she had arrived (hurriedly, said by my family, who saw her run in) and because I was progressing pretty rapidly, we all thought I'd give birth sometime during the night. I was then advised that because of my fast progress, I would have to get my epidural already because there may not be enough time later on, even if I could still handle the pain with no problem.
So I am given the epidural, which wasn't so bad. I had been scared shitless about this part because hello, a needle by your spine? The local anesthesia helped. :p I was sat up and held by an orderly and Reg to make sure I wouldn't move. And then I didn't feel anything anymore. Haha :p
At about 930pm, my doctor comes back in to do another IE and realizes I am still at 6cm. So they said they'll check again after two hours and urged me to sleep. I did try :) Two hours later, I am woken because the doctor has come back to the room for another IE and I am still at 6cm! Plus, my waters hadn't broken. So they try to burst my bag of waters to help speed up the process. Except they couldn't really because first, it was a little high up and it was attached to Tala's head so they were afraid of nicking Tala's head too. My doctor decides to try again in another two hours. In the meantime, I am informed that the monitors are tracking my contractions consistently at every two minutes and were strong.
Two hours later, I am still at 6cm. They try to break my bag of waters again, but again they had difficulty. My doctor says, another two hours and then we'll make some more decisions. In the end, I was stuck at 6cm for SIX HOURS! Finally at about 3:30am, and after another dose of pain meds, another IE check was done (which was actually late because people had fallen asleep hahaha) and they realize my bag of waters was gone. Of course I didn't feel anything (in hindsight, my doctor says they may have actually nicked the bag of waters during their attempts and must've leaked without any of us noticing). My doctor then had my bladder emptied.
After that, things started moving. I started to feel this different kind of pain in my groin that would leave me breathless as it came. The nurses said that this was the baby bearing down and that I was to inform them if the pain became too much that I would feel like I had to go to the bathroom. In the meantime, everyone else was getting the room ready for delivery and a nurse was with me practicing pushes. :p
Finally, there was that really big pain and I said, I think this is it. They add a bit more pain medicine and the pain subsided. They checked and agreed and then, the next thing I knew, it was time to push. I pushed for an hour or so. Because she was a little high, I had to get fundal support which meant someone was bearing down on my stomach with their full weight. This is where the problem started because every time they did that, I would get distracted by how I could not breathe. I could feel myself getting red from the effort of pushing and from trying to breathe. They all said after that I was turning so red and my doctor started to warn me about popping blood vessels on my face and eyes. They also said I was pushing wrong but I didn't have the strength to say that it was all because of that weight being pushed on me. Reg understood though, so he was there telling them to let me push first before they applied pressure on my abdomen. My mom was on my other side, coaching too. Tala on the other hand, would float back up after each push so I had to make sure I didn't let go of the push too quickly.
At some point though, that pain in my groin came back and it was the only thing I could feel. So I focused my attention on it and I remember just thinking, "push the pain out!". My mom was coaching, telling me that we were almost there. They had also finally gotten what Reg was saying, to let me push first. Now that I had something to focus on, everything came a little easier.
 |
| Tala's here! :) |
Everything felt very surreal. :)
So they finally head off to the nursery with her to do more checks with Reg and the rest of my family in tow while the doctor stitched me up. I was so jazzed that I didn't fall asleep right away, I ended up being able to text people. Haha! And then I started to feel these tingling sensations all around my face and my arms and my back that distracted me so it took me a while to fall back to sleep. Apparently, these were the aftereffects of all the effort I made earlier from pushing.
I think I was in my room by about 8am that morning. Sometime later, they brought Tala in for breastfeeding and we both fell asleep. :) That was the first time I got to hold her for a long time! :) Sometime after lunch, my FILC girls came and they were able to catch Tala being brought back for another breastfeeding session (after this, I would walk to the nursery with Reg na for breastfeeding).
My family came back after getting some sleep at home and we also had visitors come at night :) And that's when Reg and I started the routine of waking up at about every few hours to walk to the nursery for breastfeeding. Haha :)
By the 29th of July, we were both declared in good health and were able to go home :)
Overall, that was about 12 hours of labour (I would count from when I was admitted to when she finally came out) :)
Comments
Thank you so much for sending me the prayer for ST. Jude! But I accidentally erased it from my email!! Would you be so kind as to send it again to me please? My email add is again, kimlee0116@yahoo.com. I'm super sorry for the trouble!
God bless you and your family!
Thank you,
Kim