Birthing Marco

Since the first day I found out I was pregnant, the birthing portion of the whole baby experience has terrified me the  most. In fact, I cried when I first got the positive result and my first words to my amused hubby were "giving birth is going to be painful!". (so obviously my pain tolerance is nearly zero).

So it came as a surprise to me that when my water bag broke on the night of April 18, I was quite calm. I took a shower, put on make up, had an early dinner and even had time to apply my parents' long term visit pass in Singapore. It helped, I think, that I had my hospital bag all ready and standing by the door.

me at 2cm

We arrived at the hospital around 10pm. The delivery room at Mt Alvernia was quite spacious. All our pre natal classes and prenatal reading had me prepared on what to expect, and what to do (and not to do) once there.  Paui was also doing a good job in making me do the deep breathing exercises. What I didn't expect was blood. Lots of it. Dripping from me. The movies I saw never showed this much blood.

And while the nurses at the hospital were very nice (I especially liked the midwife attending to me. Her IE wasn't too bad), I had one horrible experience with one nurse. After attaching my catheter , she just up and did an IE without informing me (which I think should NOT be done). I gave a little scream. And the stupid nurse? She just told me "how can Dr. Tan deliver you leh if you pain like that?" Like it was my friggin' fault that she can't be expected to be gentle when touching the most sensitive parts of my body! Grrr. I think she was practicing on doing her IE on me. I can tell she is terribly INCOMPETENT. When she left, I burst into tears and my body was left shivering from the trauma.

Thankfully, my doctor and my anesthesiologist were very good at what they do (not to mention, nice and reassuring).  Marco finally came out of me 9 hours later at 6:59 AM on April 19.

One last great push (I remember I even had my eyes closed in case it helped) and Marco came out kicking and screaming out of me. My husband was quite stunned at first and had to be prompted by the nurse to take a picture. hehe.  Here is our first family picture with our OB. I'm thankful I got her. She did make my delivery as less traumatic as possible. And she was very understanding of my low pain threshold.

a tired but happy mom and dad with Marco

Paui swore there was a bucketful of blood dripping from me. And thankfully I never saw it or I might decide to make Marco an only child.  I did see this however and I still can't believe this thing and Marco were both inside me for 9 months!