Giving Birth (the second time)

Zero Notice

Out with Ken the day before our scheduled Cesarean. I sighed, happy that my days of being a watermelon smuggler were finally coming to an end.

One karate kick on my left felt very pronounced and I reminded Ken to drive slowly. Suddenly I felt a rupture and a deluge of water appeared. Damn I thought! My bladder’s getting out of control. Panty liner is not going to be enough to contain this spill. But no! Oh no! The leaky tap or rather gush was not stopping!  I was flooding the car seat! A road bump sent a puddle of water overflowing onto the car carpet!

“Kenneth, Kenneth, water bag burst. Water bag burst”

“Shit, now what? Go hospital or home?”

Let’s go home to fetch my bag, I thought. Was totally not prepared for this and I could only think of Whyee whose water bag burst in her office last week. What did she do? She went home to bath and packed her bag. Yup she did that! So I told Ken to do that too – Go home.

Yes, the waterbag burst! 

The water was not stopping so what was previously known as a car seat was now a pond. I did the typical CHIJ thing and dumped all the fabric of my dress between my open thighs to soak up the fluid. Surprise! It’s viscous! Not soaking up well! Once we reached our car park, I headed straight for the lift, leaving Ken to marvel at the reservoir above his leather.

A Pinoy maid joined me at the basement lift lobby while we waited for that wretched lift. We exchanged smiles. She pretended not to stare at my lower region and I pretended nothing is happening. I mean, I was still pouring buckets of water onto the floor, my goodness! Family of four joined us and we all exchanged warm smiles again. Finally we all squeezed into the lift and OMG was I imagining or was there a particular smell?

First Sign of Pain

Fast forward to KK where I felt my very first labor pain upon reaching the hospital. It was a pain I have never felt before. Acute and intense. It is… OH MY GOD!!!! Is this…. Contraction?!!! Dammmn…

Nurses immediately pronounced me 5cm dilated and asked if I wanted to go for natural birth when I reached 8cm. NO. NO. NO. Stick to the plan! Call Prof Tee, C-sec quick! Seriously, not that I have a choice, because within minutes, I was at the 8cm mark and struggling. GPS shows “Ah Tee reaching soon” but it was too late for Cesarean anyway. And I can also wave epidural goodbye.

What? Repeat please! What does that mean?

It means, my dear… Do it the low tech way, baby!

Labor

Labor pain was certainly a different animal compared to choking on a fish bone. Fish bone was a sharp pain and I was panicking for my life. Labor pain has no panic but is a paralyzing, all-consuming kind of pain with contractions coming in fierce waves, logging my body in seizures. My spine and lower back felt like breaking. Every position was agonizing with “something” heavy pressing against my lower back while screwing around and twisting my internal organs. URGH!! I could not even find words to describe this…

The nurse kind of described it perfectly. I felt the immense need to pass motion and this “constipated shit” has been months in the making so is the size and hardness of a watermelon. It wants to get out but could not, I want to hold it in but could not either! It was a terrible situation to be in.

quick! I wanna come out alreadi

you know you need strength to push but you are breaking out 

in cold sweat coz the shit is just too hard!

“Relax” was my instructions but how could that be possible? Ken told me to think of other things to distract myself… Err… ok, furniture for 418 is missing a urghhh!!! It suddenly occurred to me that I had yet to grab Ken’s hair, bite his hand, curse, swear and scream. Ok, I obviously watched too much TV. Those actions required too much effort and some burst of strength whereas I was limp with cold sweat! Urban myth debunked!

My “Ah Tee” suddenly arrived and commanded “ok come, legs up, your hands hold here”.

Brain Freeze. NOW? I could not quite register the moment. It did not actually occur to me that the solution to my relief was simply – to give birth! And this ‘Ah Tee’ was to deliver me? OMG of course, that is why he is my gyne! Oh Man!!! This is so weird.

I was given instructions to breath and push. But dude, shouldn’t you teach me this earlier? My feet were firmly placed against the nurse and Prof Tee’s rib cages and I was supposed to give them the cue when my next contractions come. For now we wait. A strange sight and I suddenly hallucinate my elephant legs kicking Ah Tee’s skinny body, sending him flying to the wall. Opps… effect of too much laughing gas…

NOW! I pushed with all my life! “No. No. Your technique is wrong, don’t let the air out, use your abdominal muscle, and try again. PUSH!”

PUSH for Life

Pushing was a relief. Far easier than relaxing while cramping to death. Right or wrong, I pushed with all my might since that was the only way out. Forgive the pun. Ken said I pushed so hard, my face turned purple. Wow, I would like to see that!

For every set of contraction, I managed to do around three pushes. After less than 5 sets, I could feel Morgan’s head against my perineal. This is it! The impossible… “Push and hold, push PUSH!”

Then a strange sensation of an object suddenly unplugged and drained away from me.

I wished I could post with more drama on this climatic moment but the finale was more of a Blah than a highlight. I was not overwhelmed with emotion. No teardrops. No “I did it”. It just happened and now its over. I just did what every women in the world went through during childbirth…

The Aftermath

That’s it guys, I am now officially a VBAC. I am not going to talk about the wonders and fulfillment of virginal birth. It was definitely a great experience (but C sec was a great experience too!). As far as experience goes, there is no need to repeat the same thing twice so I am extremely glad Morgan was impatient enough to choose natural birth for me. Plus kind enough to give me such a short labor lasting only a few minutes.

My good friends visited the next day and all were asking if it was painful. Same level of pain as you guys when you gave birth I guess… No No No… They all had epidural and they all felt nothing… WHAT!? I feel cheated already.