Prince Joram's Arrival

The Birthing Process

0940 hours

We reached the delivery suite and went through the registration procedures. There was a lot of waiting around for them to process us so we simply chatted with each other. I warned Joshua that the first major part of inducing is long and boring so I told him to do his own work while I rested and saved my strength for the real deal at the end.

1055 hours

The doctor finally inserted the first tablet to induce labor. We had already rallied our friends to pray for a quick and successful process and the Lord was merciful to answer that prayer. Within minutes, the first contraction began. I was wondering if the contractions were effective enough to dilate my cervix since I did not feel any pain. It was very much like the Braxton Hicks, which I had constantly experienced previously. In fact, if I were not paying attention, I thought that the contractions had stopped, till I check the machine to ascertain otherwise.

1330 hours

My lunch came and I dug in heartily as I knew that I would need all the strength for the later part of the day and Joshua went to get his own food.

1445 hours

The readings on my contractions convinced my gynea to start giving me the antibiotics for the GBS infection. I was still doubtful that the painless contractions were really doing their job in opening my cervix.

1555 hours

My cervix was finally checked and announced to be 3 cm dilated. I was surprised since previously, I would have found it difficult to walk during contractions by this time and yet I still felt nothing. I could only be grateful to God for allowing me an easy first part of the labor.

1840 hours

By now, I started feeling pain during contractions and thought that I was progressing towards active labor. I was already 5 cm dilated and coping pretty well with breathing techniques and Joshua’s massages.

1900 hours

My gynea discovered during an internal exam that Joram’s hand was at the cervix. She told her colleagues that if my waters break, they must help me push his hand back into the womb because if the hand comes out before the head, I would have to go for an emergency caesarean.

1927 hours

Joram was apparently eager to come out. With a mighty punch, I could clearly feel him break the water bag himself! Fear griped me as I remembered what my gynea said. I tried not to move till the doctor came to examine me. She frantically tried to stuff his hand back in and even asked her colleagues to help her out too. With all these happening, I started crying out both inwardly to God for help and outwardly to release the stress building up in me. Thankfully, God intervened and the hand was no longer in the way after 10 minutes. It was safe to continue the labor till the end especially since the GBS infection was no longer a concern anymore. However, another problem began to pose itself to us.

1937 hours

With the breaking of the waters, I felt a great need to bear down and the pain greatly intensified. All hell broke loose and I started screaming during contractions to feel better. I told the doctor and nurses that I wanted to push and they checked me. I was still only 5 to 6 cm dilated! When I asked if I could push, the doctor said in an uncertain tone that I could push if I really wanted to. A nurse then added that I was not yet fully dilated. Yet another medical personnel asked me if I wanted an epidural since it might take some time before I deliver. I was extremely confused. I didn’t know what to do. I could only yell out in frustration and pull at my husband’s arm during each rapidly coming contraction and try discussing about what to do in between. After being bombarded by a barrage of suggestions for me to take the epidural, I finally acceded to get them off my back. I guess it must have been rather traumatizing for them to hear my loud screaming.

1945 hours

Someone called for my gynea and an anesthetist came in to go through with me the long speech regarding the risks of epidural. Halfway through, I totally lost interest and decided to listen to my own body and start pushing as I could feel the baby coming through. I screamed my lungs out with each contraction as I pushed with all my strength. The medical personnel noticed what I was doing and was in a frenzy to help me. There was simply not enough time to put up the delivery equipment. Someone kept telling me to control my breathing and not scream. Believe me, I would if it were of any use at all. Breathing in and out only served to interfere with my pushing so I resumed my screaming and grunting.

2001 hours

After only a few pushes, Joram was out and I could clearly see the shocked look on the doctor’s face at the speed of it all. She was unprepared to be the one doing the delivery and fumbled during the extracting of the cord blood. It would have been amusing if it weren’t for the pain and distress I was in, trying to convince everyone that I was ready to give birth despite being only 5 cm dilated and that screaming was the best way to help me to do it. After a few minutes, my gynea finally arrived to deliver the placenta and stitch me up. She was the only who understood automatically my need to scream to relieve stress. She actually told me I could scream all I want if I found the stitching painful because then, at least, she would know that I was alright. Ironically, I was feeling light-headed at that time due to the sudden blood loss and the bright lights in the room. I did scream though, after I felt better. Together with Joram’s crying, we made a great duet in the delivery suite. LOL

All in all, I was glad we went through with the inducing. Joram was already 3kg at 38 weeks, the biggest baby I had so far. If I had waited longer, I wonder if I would have difficulty pushing him out. God’s mercy was evident throughout the process and everything turned out well. After the stitching was done. I did what I had never done in the delivery suite before. I broke down in tears of joy and cried to Joshua that it was finished. The vision was fulfilled and my mission finally accomplished. To God be all the glory!

Greetings, brand new world!

My babe and I

Home Sweet Home

Joram's newborn photo is finally up!

Backstory

During the last month of my pregnancy, my nausea and fainting spells came back with a vengeance. It was totally unexpected since it had always been that the closer my due date, the better I felt for the past 3 pregnancies. I was actually looking forward to meeting up with friends, having some time to myself and generally enjoying my ‘break’ before I deliver. To my dismay, I returned to my bedridden state.

At first, when I realized I had to put Jaide in full day infant care for the months of April and May because I could give birth in either month, I was quite uncomfortable leaving her to the care of others for such a long time. But God, in His infinite wisdom, allowed that to happen, as I could not have been able to care for her during the month of April given my condition. I even had to activate my cell group friends to come over and help out with the chores and get me lunch on weekdays, something I thought I needn’t do this time round.

Term had started for my husband and it was his peak period with lots of work to catch up on and events to be in-charged of. With me completely out of action, he had to function like a single father of 3 young children with barely enough sleep as he had to work through most nights to reduce his backlog.

Strangely, we eventually discovered that I had developed anemia, which could not be fixed through iron supplements or infusion, accounting for my deterioration in health.

My gynea recommended inducing labor during our visit on Wednesday.

Reasons being:

1) My anemia can only be cured by the delivery of the baby. If left unchecked, it might lead to complications during childbirth such as blood loss issues.

2) I have the GBS infection again. The previous time, I could only get to the hospital in time for 1 hr of the antibiotic drip before childbirth (actually I needed 4 hours) and poor Jaide had to go through 4 painful injections and was placed under observation. Thank God that she was fine but I keep having the nagging feeling that it might have contributed to her ill health and weak respiratory tract. With inducing, it will greatly increase the chances of getting the full course of antibiotics.

3) I gained 18kg for this pregnancy! I usually gain about 10 kg so I'm really huge this time round. The gynea said that Joram was very well grown when she checked my stomach. I was past my 38 weeks and my cervix was soft so there is a high chance of a successful inducing.

Frankly, we were hoping for Joram to be born in the week of Labor Day, as it will be the best week for Joshua in terms of taking paternity leave from work. At first, the inducing was to be on Tues but the delivery suite was fully booked so it had been changed to Monday 9.30am instead. Perhaps, it was God's way of answering our prayers for Joram to be born on the 29^th of April?

My only real concern was that it increased the chance of a c-section. However, with each day of waiting being pure torture for both my husband and I, we decided to go ahead with the inducing and submitted that decision to the Lord. It is indeed true what God warned me at the beginning; that this pregnancy will be different from the previous ones.

Kiss the Girl

I've been wanting to get a video of Jaide kissing me back but she'd be very distracted once the camera is out. Somehow the way she does it seems more endearing than the older two. Joash had the tendency to slobber on my cheek while Jayna did not learn to make the smooching sound till she was much older. So, I had Joshua use his iphone instead to take this discreetly.

Bouncy Castle

Just one tooth

After such a long time, there's only one more coming out from the bottom gum. Jaide really needs more teeth below to chew properly. Press on, pearlies!