My laborious journey

Baby was in right position and I had been feeling so achy for the last few weeks but still no signs of labour , except increasing braxton hicks (false contractions) at night .. I edged nearer and nearer towards the official due date and wonder when it would happen.

Then, at 4am on 29 Jun, I got awakened by this really strong contraction. Sensing something different , I went to the toilet and saw the bloody show (which is not that bloody actually). Then I tried to time the contractions but they were not that near yet so I decided to wait and see. At 5am, I decided to have some breakfast in case I get hungry later. Contractions seemed to be nearer at 5-6minutes apart and increasing in intensity so I decided to head to hospital at about 6am.

Upon reaching, they put us in the labour ward and I just lay there and wait. Unfortunately , dilation was only 0.5cm then so it does look like we have a long way to go. After laying there for around one hour plus with not much progress, I decided to stand up and walk around , hoping it would expedite the dilation. I kept prancing around until my doctor arrived but still there was no progress.

Hence, he suggested I checked into my room so I would have more space to walk instead of waiting in the labour ward and so I did. However, as the single room was not yet available, I checked into a double bedded temporarily. That also meant that I didn't really prance around so much as it would disturb my neighbour. So I tried to kill time by watching "Suits". Finally, at around 2-3pm, they transferred me to single room and I started to walk again. I walked and I walked till I feel the contractions intensifying in pain. So at around 7-8pm, I decided to go down to labour ward to check for dilation again.

After I went down, the pain got worse and all the breathing I practiced in prenatal yoga didn't quite help and I was simply in pain .. So I asked for some pain relief . It was between a jab that would last for 6-8 hours, laughing gas or epidural. Checked for dilation and it was still 1cm after 14 hours. The nurse took a while to come back with the doctor's advice. In the meanwhile , I was feeling the waves of contraction hit every 6 minutes and it was super painful . At this point, I wasn't sure how long more I can withstand this repeating pain since the dilation was progressing so slowly,

Finally, she said doctor is ok with epidural and it was arranged at 11pm. Thereafter, everything became a breeze as I could no longer feel anything even as the contractions hit 100s on the screen. For the first time in nights, I slept like a baby with no true or false contractions. By morning, doc checked for contractions again at 6-7am and it was still 1cm! He said that we would give it another six hours before making a decision since it's been quite long.

By 12pm, he came in and still it's measuring 1cm. By then, he offered to induce or c section. However , he didn't quite encourage the former as we hadn't seen much progress despite the contractions I've had so far. Hence, a speedy decision was derived and Cayson was soon delivered ... After 31 gruelling hours ! 


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