Friday, 21/05/2006
The contraction started to feel a bit different than usual, was prepared to go, but the contractions weren’t sustained, they subsided on the following Saturday morning.
Saturday, 22/05/2006
We just stayed at home. At night the same story happened, more contractions, quite regular and the pain was increasing. But just like the Friday night’s the contractions didn’t last. Lina managed to sleep just 2 hours starting at about 4am-ish, by the time she woke up, the contractions were irregular and decreasing in intensity, we were disappointed. And it’s quite obvious that the lack of sleep has started to taken its toll on Lina.
Sunday, 23/07/2006
We skipped church today, Lina was quite cheerful today, she managed to watch Full Metal Panic the whole afternoon, and me playing Call of Duty. The basketball wasn’t on, which is probably a good thing
as of Sunday night was the beginning of the tough journey for both of us.
Sunday night, like before the contractions were there, again it was increasing in intensity compared to the day before. The fact that Lina hasn’t been able to sleep properly for 2 nights, make the pain even more painful for her.
On the 5th call to the hospital (the hospital calling started from Friday), they finally told her to come in for a check.
It was about 9.30pm. The result of the check, was quite disappointing for both of us (and our family
who were eager to get the show going), the contractions during the last few days only produced a 1cm dilation. This means Lina was still in pre-labour stage, a long way to go they said.
Lina was given pain relief and asked whether she would like to stay on the hospital or going home and try to get sleep and rest, we opted for staying home.
Monday 24/07/2006
At home, the pain killer didn’t really help with the pain, at 2.30am, Lina still in terrible pain, she found a trace of blood, we called the hospital and again we came to the hospital, this time we were staying in. Lina stayed in on the delivery suite until morning, because the midwife thought that it would be quite a while before the real labour starts, Lina was sent to the pre-natal ward on level 4.
For the rest of the day, the contractions were quite regular (to us anyway, but apparently not for the hospital people), the intervals were shorter, the only thing that’s irregular is the pain intensity (the pain was definetely far greater than before, but it is not always increasing with each contractions). They kept on telling us: “it’s still going to be awhile”. I felt quite frustated and helpless seeing Lina in pain.
At midnight, Lina couldn’t take the pain anymore, she asked for epidural (strong pain killer injected on the spine). We actually planned for a natural delivery as much as possible (by natural I mean no epidural or caesarean), but at this stage, Lina probably had suffered enough.
Tuesday 25/07/2006
The epidural was effective to reduce Lina’s pain. She was able to put in few hours of sleep and so did I. Around 4.30am-ish, the doctor came in and she told us that the baby was getting stressful (baby’s heartbeat was monitored all the time) and she needed to examine the baby’s condition. She then took a blood sample of Jet from his head. About half an hour later, the test result came, the doctor was very concerned, she told us that the baby had to be delivered soon otherwise it would dangerous to him.
The doctor was suggesting a caesarean as she didn’t want to wait for the full dilation. We quite disappointed with this as Lina already suffered for awhile so that she can deliver naturally, but as it was for the good of the baby we agreed to it. As the operating room (equipments?) was prepared, the doctor did another check on Lina, and guess what… Jet is making his way out! As the doctor was quite anxious about the baby, she got a forceps to speed up the whole process. And indeed the process was quite quick, on Lina’s second push, Jet was out!
Jet finally came out of the womb on 6.23am. He cried after came out, he wasn’t as loud as I expected, and he didn’t really cry for long. My first impression was, wow, his skin looked weird, he was so clean, his skin was grey-ish like marble? I felt really relieved, after a long period of battling with the pain, the fruit of the labor has arrived.
Because of the forceps delivery, Jet got forceps marks on his face which I think looks really cool! Reminds me of wolverine 😛
