The first photo of Cedric and he is comfortably wrapped and placed under the warmer to keep his body temperature up.
The journey and experience itself is so incredible and I'm sharing it with you here for the memory of our joy.
With no contraction sign upon reaching the estimated due date by the gynae, we grew a little worry as the baby is estimated to be over 3.5kg and he is growing in enormous size everyday. We prefer natural birth and Caesaran is to be avoided if possible. Meet-up with gynae is set-up on the weekend, just 2 days before the due date and gynae suggested for induction by 29th July 2011. The concern got us to book up the labour room for the process and we waited patiently over the next few days hoping for a natural contraction to come. By 28th July, there is still no contraction and her cervix is still not soften, so gynae arranged for her to be warded by 27th July for medication to help ripen the cervix.
Hospital of choice, Sunway Medical Center. Decision driven by the Gynae that we wanted, Dr. Jason Lim.
Arrived in 8.00pm waiting for registration. We passed on the doctor letter and they got everything cover from there. The registration information and process is all pre-arranged and hassle free. Part of the advantage of private hospital, I suppose?
Choice of room and rates. Unfortunately they are so busy this week that all single room and twin bedded room are all not available. The nurse said we are lucky to get a bed to lay down, that busy. We got her the four-bedded room, and the bad thing is I couldn't stay around by her side after midnight, she is so scared.
After the registration, a nurse brought us to the 2nd floor into the ward room.
First thing to do is to fill the remaining information for our baby. The filled form will be use later for baby's registration, but you can always leave the baby name out until you are ready to register him with the government. Four-bedded room does not have any TV but everything else is the same, only 4 bed in the size of 2x single room. Much cheaper, only complain is I can stay by her side over the night.
She is then tag with a handband and there are two remaining band that's reserved for the baby after born to avoid mixing up. We checked on all the particular on the handband.
She is then given a robe as her dress for her entire stay in the ward. V somemore, still haven't start medication, that's why can smile =)
Question then arise in my head that what you will need to bring to the Hospital? Thanks to my wife with her detailed planning, she has a list that I'm sharing with you here.
1. A set of clothing during discharge, long loose dress, shirt and a jacket with hood is essential.
2. Breast pump set, if you planning for breast feeding. No need bottle, as nursery will have it.
3. Handphone & charger set.
4. Entertainment needs, such as laptop, iPad, music player, magazine. Mostly only use before labour. So don't over bring, as you won't be bother to do all those after labour =P
5. Contact lens container & solution, but it's not recommended to wear contact lens. Change out to spectacle and leave the contact lens at home. She reasoned that she need to see things clearly if not she will panic.
6. Some bread, instant milo / horlick.
7. Few pair of socks.
8. A full set of baby clothing and baby wrap for discharge.
Forget about martenity pads, disposable panties, infant formula, diapers, water, cup, tupperware, tooth brush, tooth paste, and etc. Those are all provided in Sunway Medical Center, but you might want to check if you are going somewhere else. She brought a whole luggage and barely use anything. But to kill of your nervous feeling, it might help to know everything is in the bag if you ever need it. That's what she do, doing 150% of everything to make sure all is right. It's the most painful moment she will need to go through anyway, so I happily carry anything she want for her. For husband, just bring your camera / videocam and be by her side.
She is then wrapped with devices to measure the baby's movement & heart rate, essential to monitor during the process of induction.
The normal range of heart rate shall be within range of 130+ per minute and it's normal to plus minus a little especially when there is a contraction. Her cervix opening is measured 1cm when warded, and she is then given medication of the 1st dose of Prostaglandin hormone by insertion of medication drug (Cervidil) to her cervix to help soften it and also provide mild stimulate to contraction. Immediately she feel the mild contraction after a while and it lasted 6 hours until she is check again by the nurse. The cervix is then measured 1.5cm and by gynae's instruction, 2nd dose of Prostaglandin hormone is provided to continue the medication, and that lasted for another 5 hours before active labour. That's 11 hours of mild contraction, if you notice! It's a little painful but enough to disturb her sleep. She is exhausted by morning, while I patiently waited at the waiting room and took a short nap in the car.
By next morning 8.30am, the nurse did another check and the cervix is dilated 2cm only. As per the plan, we are then transfer to the labour room for further active induction.
Here is an overview of the labour room in Sunway Medical Center, very well equipped and it's not that scary also. As we will be spending the rest of our time here until delivery, and they are so considerate to even install a TV for us to kill some time. The gynae arrived early and my wife go for her last trip to toilet. She is not allow to eat too many things as that will complicate the matter, if in case she will need to go for Caesarean operation later on. Reason being she will be go through anaesthesia that will risk her for food to be left un-process in her stomach and also possible of food back flowing into lung as she lost control over her muscle during the process. Same pre-caution to be taken if you are going for Caesaran process.
The gynae arrive at 9.45am and inspected her immediately. Within seconds, the gynae performed the Amniotomy (water breaking) and small volume of water gushes out without my wife realising it. Gynae inspected the water and noticed the baby had pass-motion when in the womb but gynae assure that the contamination is minimum and the baby would still be able to go through normal birth. My wife is then hook up with salt water that's mixed with Oxytocin hormone (Pitocin) that will help in contraction. The initial injection rate is 6ml/hour and it's' so effective that my wife went into active labour immediately by 10.00am.
The contraction is then much more intense and lasted longer comparing to her last night experience. I'm sure the contraction is so painful that I can see it from her eyes. She need to divert her mind so I took the opportunity to get my breakfast. When I returned, she is complaining on severe pain on her back, that she couldn't hold anymore. I help her to massage the back and it's a slight relief to the pain (I hope). I massage her for 2 hours and by 12.00pm, the nurse checked and confirmed the dilation is only 4cm! 2 hours for 2cm dilation and 6cm more to go, she nearly fainted. Finally considering everything, we decided for her to take up Epidural to reduce the pain.
After we informed the nurse, within minutes the Aanesthesiologist arrived with medication. He is so professional to introduce himself, explain the procedure, method and medication he is going to use. How epidural works, possible side effects and everything you need to know on epidural. After he confirmed we fully understand the procedure, then off he start. My wife sit up and he do his insertion of the catheter to the spinal cord. Then it's my turn to nearly fainted for holding my position to support my wife and looking at the procedure. It's not that scary, but more to nervous feeling hoping everything goes right. It's spinal cord we are talking here! Anyway the procedure went smoothly and within minutes she is hook up with the medication. It's so effective that it kill the pain immediately! It's so good to see my wife relief of the pain she is going through.
The right side machine is the epidural medication running in at 8.0ml/hour while the left side machine control the injection of the oxytocin hormone with saltwater. As when the epidural is up, the nurse doubled the injection of the oxytocin to 12ml/hour. The clock show 12.00pm. With the epidural running, she is relief but do still feel the contraction coming in more often. I took the opportunity to rest while she try to hold it through. The whole process speed up considerately after that and the injection is then increase to 24ml/hour and finally the opening is almost 9cm by 2.00pm. That's quick and painless, thanks to epidural!
Midwife arrived and gynae did a final check then we start the final part of active labour. For those that's going through the natural birth path, read this section. The gynae will not be in the delivery room and only midwife is going to help you. Unfortunately the midwife we got that day is not very helpful as she don't teach my wife properly on the correct method to push. Of course my wife wouldn't know how to do it, how could she? If you push the wrong way, then there is no way the baby is coming out. The idea is to push the baby out more than he return back to his position due to muscle movement, or so call three out two in process. So at least the baby is moving inch by inch.
I summarise the method and important pointers that I garther with advice from the midwife, gynae and my wife's experience. It might sounds easy but it's extremely difficult to follow. Hope it helps.
- wait for contraction and you should push only together with the contraction.
- inhale a deep breath and push as you exhale out slowly.
- push the holder with your legs and pull the handle with your hands to help the pushing force.
- never ever hold your buttock muscle and it must be in relax form.
- push with muscle from stomach, just like coughing.
- when let go of the push, exhale the remaining oxygen slowly to avoid the baby from going back in too much.
- regroup your breathing and repeat again as much as you can in a single contraction.
- never waste energy when there is no contraction.
The contraction is so painful that I can see from my wife's eyes and her body is all trembling in each contraction even with help from epidural. After a hard labour of 20 minutes and wrong pushing method, my wife is exhausted. We then decided to call for gynae to help and he arrived within minutes. Immediately he corrected the pushing method and prepare the vacuum extraction. The active labour can last as long as you want, but the concern is always on the baby's health condition. The heart rate of the baby shouldn't drop below 110 and the baby will need oxygen not too long after water bag is broken, or else any longer then the gynae will have to find solution to either perform Caesarean or other method to protect the baby.
With the gynae's help and my wife determination, our baby is finally born and the experience of seeing the baby when he is coming out is incredible. If you have not done it, then you are missing the best thing in the world. The baby's texture, colour of the skin, expression, powerless limbs, first cry, how the midwife clean him up. What you see in the photo above is all the way after the whole process is over. You only can experience the birth of a baby when you are in the delivery room, even my wife didn't see it I think =)
The whole labour lasted almost 17 hours and we rejoice with our Cedric baby born in healthy condition.
My wife resting while the baby is busy exploring the new world surrounding him. Two of the most important person in my life.
After a good rest, took the opportunity to snap a family photo. Young family =) She is exhausted and I didn't sleep for almost 48 hours and the baby is busy exploring the world.
Another close-up shot of Cedric Lim. With all daddy & mummy love.
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