Friday 9pm

I checked into the hospital delivery ward on a Friday night for my induced labour. Shortly after admission, my OB arrives and inserts a pessary containing prostaglandin into my vagina to ripen the cervix and hopefully stimulates enough contractions to jump-start my labor. After that, I was asked to stay in the delivery ward and get some sleep. If all goes well, I could be ready to deliver the next day.

Saturday 1am

My husband left the hospital at 1am. I couldn’t doze off no matter how I tried. After a few hours tossing about on my bed, I began to feel slight contraction pains at around 4am and from then on, all I could do is lie down and rest my eyes. There’s no way I could sleep with the pain being a constant bother. It’s during times like these I wish I could fast-forward the clock. Anyway, it was a really long, boring and uncomfortable night.

Saturday 8am

It took forever for the clock to strike 8am the next morning. My husband arrives a quarter past eight and my OB came to check up on me at 8.30am. He measured my cervix opening and it was only 2cm dilated. He inserted another half pessary into my vagina and hope it will be enough to further enlarge the opening of my cervix. Failing such, my next resort is Oxytocin, given by a drip through an IV pump, to augment my contractions according to how my labour progresses. The wait and see situation continues. So does contraction pains and 2 hourly foetal monitoring to make sure the baby’s heartbeat is normal.

Saturday 2pm

At around 2pm, my OB came and check on me again and I was informed that my cervix was only 5cm dilated. He told me that I will need to go for Oxytocin in the evening if my cervix does not dilate up to a minimum of 10cm.

I was also informed that most women who required oxytocin are likely to opt for epidural to help with the pain. Oxytocin are known to cause more painful contractions, in brief.

My husband and I decided long ago to deliver naturally without epidural if possible. But on this day, the delivery room had 6 pregnant women and 5 of them wanted epidural. We started to have second thoughts and ultimately decided to go with epidural. Frankly, that one lady who delivered without epidural freaked me out with her screaming.

Saturday 6.30pm

It was time to move into the labour room to start me on the drip and epidural. An intravenous administration of synthetic oxytocin preparations was done to me. After that, I was asked to sit up, back arched and remain absolutely still for epidural. The anesthesiologist applied antiseptic solution to wipe the waistline area of my mid back. This is to minimize the chance of infection. Then a small area of my back was injected with a local anesthetic to numb it. That was one excruciatingly painful jab! Then a needle will be inserted into the numbed area that surrounds the spinal cord in the lower back. A small tube or catheter is threaded through the needle into the epidural space. The needle is carefully removed leaving the catheter in place so medication can be given through periodic injections or by continuous infusion.The catheter remains taped to my back to prevent it from slipping out. From there on, my legs were numb and I had no sensation of contraction pains.

Saturday 8.00pm

By the time everything was done, it was almost 8pm. The nurse expects me to deliver at around 10pm. All I had to do now is lie down, relax and wait for my cervix to fully dilate. My husband head to the cafeteria for a quick dinner at half past eight.

At around 9pm, I felt something coming out from my vagina and I quickly called the nurse. She told me that I was bleeding, my cervix fully dilated and told me to start pushing. My OB has yet to arrive and my husband was not back yet. I was so nervous my legs were shaking and I felt difficult to breath. My husband returned in time to calm me down.

Thank god, my OB arrived a few minutes later and told me to keep pushing. He was a sight of relief. I kept on pushing and in less than 15 mins, my baby’s head was out with the help of a ventouse (suction). Within a matter of seconds, my baby was lying on my belly. The joy of holding her for the first time is truly indescribable.

My husband recorded the birth of our baby girl on video and whenever we watch the clip, we are reminded of the wonderful feelings we felt on that special moment.