Never in my life have I ever dreamt that I will go through actual labour without any pain relief. But with my son, I did just that. The whole experience was different from Jilliane's birth and now I finally can get tell people, what labour actually feels like, being totally conscious of the pain & noise around me.
After Cheng's wedding on 24th Sept, Dw & me sent Jilliane home, washed her up & prepared her for bed. We left the house close to midnight and headed to Mt Alv. We checked in abt 12.30am and we ended up in the same delivery suite as I did for Jilliane. Best part was, both occasions were on Sundays.
Midwife checked my cervix, not dilated so proceeded to insert the induction pill. If there's any advice that I can give to potential mums, I'll say, NEVER opt for this route. It's disatrous! Once the pill took effect, the contractions came, at intervals closer & closer. Unfortunately, these contractions do not cause the cervix to dilate so at 3am, whilst I was in terrible pain, I could not opt for epidural as I was not dilated. The pain was unbearable, I was biting myself, pulling my hair, basically inflicting more pain on myself in the hope that it will distract me from my painful contractions!
3.30am - nurse suggested giving me a pain relief jab on my thigh - pethidine. Ok, whatever that works, just bring it on! Sadly, it NEVER relieved me of any pain, but I did keep wanting to drift off to sleep. This drug is scary, I can't even control my eyelids. One moment I was awake, the next I was knocked out. Then the pain kicks in & I'm awake again.. & yes, NEVER eat or drink anything once you are jabbed. I puked like mad just after a sip of water.
5am - Pain just kept on increasing. Nurse suggested to check cervix again to see if epidural could be administered. But I refused as midwives checking cervix is 100x more painful than my lovely, gentle gynae. Afterall Dr Fong was coming abt 7am, if i weren't dilated at 3am, how much difference would it be at 5am right?! Wrong!
6.45am - Urge to push, told DW & the nurses. Had to check cervix and I was 10cm dilated!! Piangz! My heart sank, I knew this means no more epidural was allowed. Goodness gracious me. But a very nice Indian midwife very patiently taught me to use the gas at the right timings and God was definitely there with me, as the gas made me so high that the pain was alleviated and I started hallucinating about Bach & music scores. This beats alcohol anytime!
7.30am - Pushed as hard as I could, baby just refused to come out until Dr Fong threatened that he was going to send me for emergency C-sect.. oops, I panicked, that would bring my bill up to more than $10k!! no way! I pushed damn hard, and finally Baby Jenson was born.
True labour indeed... how did those folks in my grandma's generation manage to go through this 10x?!! I'm done with 2 kids!