The Little Autumn

Age : 2 days

I am officially a mother…

… of our beloved little autumn. This is the greatest feeling ever. Welcome to the world, honey.

Broken

Just as we said earlier, Karen wanted to repeat the internal exam to decide if we should break the water artificially. 6 cm as we’re progressing too slowly. This time, rather than being pushy, she advised us on it. We accepted her advise. And the water was finally broken at 115 am. Clear colour which is good. Time to sleep.

Water Immersion

Julie had helped us to transfer to 507. We were then greeted by Karen, another midwife. Since the contraction pain was less, she thought that we might not actually be in established labour but rather in latency stage. Both her and the consultant agreed that we needed another internal exam. If it was still about 3cm, then they would just send us home on some sedative. Seems reasonable to me. Darling wife was a bit hesitant but eventually agreed.

At 9pm, the cervix was fully effaced and dilated between 4-5cm. Karen immediately took out the hook and wanted to rupture the membrane artificially. I started to panic…. Just 1 minute ago they were just about to send us home and suddenly they wanted to commit us to labour now?????

Karen dah keluarkan hook tu dari packaging dah tapi I paksa dia stop. Ada ker tak bincang tak apa terus nak buat. Terkujat gila kitorang.

Pros – it will strengthen the contractions and speed things up

Cons – if things don’t go as planned, then caesar would almost be a certainty. And later we found out anoother potential disadvantage.

We refused it for now and Karen will do another exam in 4 hours and then we’ll take it from there.

In the meantime, Darling bwiife’s energy had replenished from the rest sshe got from the pethidine Alhamdulillah.

Her contractions got worse …. Or the pethidine was wearing off.. So we decided to try some options. Laughing gas or nitrous oxide. I tried some myself – I really felt lightheaded – rather unpleasant.

Then we were thinking of another pethidine but Karen suggested a water bath or immersion. It was awesome.

3cm …. lagi…..

In the 508 birthing suite, The contraction continued. At about 530 am, Darling Wife had a SHOW. Malas nak explain, pikir sendiri. Since things looked as if it was not going anywhere soon, I went home for a shower around 7am. Picked up Mak Yang and Ijat and off to work. Before we managed to get into the building, my phone rang.

Ishhhhh…. Dah terberanak ke nih. Sapa nak bangkan nih. 6ortunately, it was a calm voice at the end of the phone line. They thought that her progress was too slow and wanted to transfer her to the general ward for now.

I left mak yang and ijat to take her up to the ward while I went to work in the adjoining building.

When I came back, her contractions are even further apart. Things are going int the wrong direction. Mak yang ngan ijat pun dah nampak boring. So I let them go home while I tried to sleep in the room.

At 5pm, they did another internal exam. Still 3cm. Things hasn’t progressed at all after all those contractions.

The pain seemed a bit less bearable and seemingly futile. I kept reminding her that Allah tests those he loves.

At 700pm, after 40 long hours of enduring pain, we decided to let Darling wife have some pethidine. Thanks Liz of Yorkshire.

Darling wife cried while having pethidine. It was as if she was admitting defeat I guess. I knew she wanted everything to be natural right. From the start.

After the pethidine, she went into a deep sleep. Shehad been suffering so much and being sleep deprived had taken it’s toll. She was exhausted. She was in no shape to give birth and this could get even worse.

As I write this entry, in retrospect, I thgought that it was the right thing to do. When she woke up briefly, it was quite obvious that she had so much more energy after a short restful nap. One way or the other, whatever decision you”ll make in the future, I feel that it deserves both understanding aand respect.

At 730pm, we were transferred to another birthing suite – 507 – If our labour isn’t progressing…… Then Why????

3cm

After all those commotion, we entered the Pregnancy Assessment and Observation Unit PAOU. At this stage, contractions were 3 minutes apart and lasting a minute. Severity 8/10. The midwife Colleen did an internal exam – cervix shortened and 3cm dilated. They asked if we wanted to come in. We said yes. At 2am, we were brought to the birthing suite.