About 8 Years Ago

The small pain

Midnight came when the woman was awaken with a strong urge to pee. It's not a new feeling to her especially when she reached her final trimester of gestation. She went out to do her thing.

The comfort room was outside the house, like any typical old house in the neighborhood. Not long when she felt like peeing again, so she had to go out again. There was a slight pain on her lower back when she returned to her bedroom. She left the room's door open. She kept from tossing from side to side, doing different positions just to alleviate the pain and get back to sleep.

She slept a minute and was awaken by the persisting little pain. Her mother who was sleeping on the room felt her uneasiness. She woke up and peeped at her daughter. She saw her on a genucubital position. She knew that maybe it's due time. But she just let her be but remained awake and alert.

The younger woman once again went to pee and found little blood stain on her undies. She knocked at her parents room when she got in. She asked for a sanitary napkin to her mom. Her mother asked why and told her there was some blood stain on her underwear.

It was confirmed so the mother got up and prepared her daughter's things in a bag. Her father was also awakened. Her mother asked how the pain was and she answered it's still tolerable and maybe 15-20 minutes interval. Until it begun to quicken. The cramping on her abdomen begun. The pain made her clenched her teeth.

The mother knocked at her sons room and awakened her son next to her daughter. She asked him to get up and start the car. So he did. He took her sister's bag of clothes while their parents were assisting her get on the car.

The hospital was just a block away so they reached it in just a couple of minutes.

The girl however, didn't bring along the baby bags which contained the baby clothes and her toiletries. She's not expecting to give birth that very night. The EDD (expected date of delivery) according to her LMP (last menstrual period) was March 28, whereas her EDD based on sonography was somewhat later by the second week of April.

Due to the peak season of farming in the village, that she went alone to town at her parents (March 27). She and her husband talked about him to bring the baby bags the following day after he would be done with the farm works. So the bag she carried was only her clothes to change into while staying at her parents.

Their mother asked her son to go pick her brother-in-law at the village, a 30-minute one way ride that would make a 1 hour time drive to and fro. That was already minutes passed 3am, March 28.

More pain

At the receiving area, she was received by a nurse and asked some necessary questions and jot it down the paper. The doctor on duty then came and coaxed her to the examination room. Pain was written all over her face that she can't manage to walk and get up to the examination table. But she had to.

The doctor asked her to be in a dorsal recumbent position but the pain still made her in a lateral recumbent position. The rationale is to identify how dilated she was thru an internal examination (IE). And because she can't stay that way, the doctor examined the fetal heart rate and FHT. The stethoscope on her belly made the cramping worsen that it made her felt cold. Good thing the baby was in the right position and very much engaged during her last prenatal check-up.

She managed to be in a dorsal recumbent and tolerated the pain of labour while the Ob-gyne performed an IE. The doctor said the cervix already was 6cm dilated. And told her that an assisting midwife would usher her to her room when she felt she can managed to walk. Cold sweats already formed and started dripping.

At the OB ward, in her room she lied in a lateral position because it's what she's comfortable at. The back pain and the belly cramping was too intolerable that she started to push. But just some couple of seconds. She felt very sleepy and told her mother she wanted to sleep. Her mother said to fight it off because it's bad. Her mother told her not to cry or shout because of the pain. Well, she's doesn't feel like crying anyway. But her eye lids were too heavy to handle everytime the pain goes away.

Teeth-clenching pain

At the labour room or delivery room, the nurses urged her be in a lithotomy position but she can't bring her feet at the stirrups of the delivery table. She can't do it, even in dorsal recumbent position. She still wanted to stay in a lateral position while pushing.

Because it was her first time, the young nurses told her the importance of the right position in delivering. They also told her to push hard and long until they will tell her to stop when the head was already delivered. And when pushing, she must not turn her head sideways like she was doing. She must look at her belly, bring her head a little forward if she wanted to. And shut her eyes to avoid small nerves from erupting.

She again felt the urge to push.

Puush... stopped. Head can already be seen but she stopped to push. The pain which drive her to push also was gone. That went on for 3 or 4 times that at the last push the receiving midwife performed an epiosiotomy.

Another teeth-gnashing pain made her to push and the nurse standing beside her performed a fundal push. It helped her to push longer until the head was finally delivered.

Because the building the delivery room was located near the hospital's driveway that an entering vehicle can be heard. A car was heard coming and stopped at the hospital's driveway. Moments later, rushing feet were heard across the hallway. Her husband who was picked by her brother finally came with the baby bags.

He gave the bags to the available nurse inside the delivery room. The nurse helped herself with the bag and produced from it readily made baby blankets and baby clothes, mittens, socks and bonnet in.

At last..

On the other hand, the baby's cry can be heard around the room and out. The shrill cry brought floods of emotion to the woman that she hugged him when they placed him at her breast. The warm skin-to-skin of the mother and child was something inexplicable.

It was the first time of everything, that every detail was still fresh and can't just be forgotten. The thick vernix caseosa all over the newborn's body, the very thick lanugo at his forhead to his arms and legs.The episiorraphy which is much painful than giving birth though pain reliever was injected. The breastfeeding journey which made her experience mastitis. The sore and cracked nipples that made her cry when she breastfed. It was like a blade slowly cutting of her nipples that it bled when her baby fed.

Bathing the baby alone for the very first time without someone to teach. It seems the fragile little bunch of a human will slip through the hands.

The baby blues and postpartum depression which was very bad. There were times she seem not to hear or get annoyed by the baby's cry. Thanks she still kept her sanity.

March 28,2013 at 4:03am, delivered a baby boy weighing exactly 3000 grams.

Indeed, it was the first time for everything. Little abnormalities with the baby's health would make the parents alarmed and went rushing to the pediatrician.

Outgrown my lap, but never my heart

A mother's love knows no bound. No matter how stubborn her child may be, she still loves him/her unconditionally.

8 years have gone by and the little bunch that he was is already growing to be a little man. This boy who is my ultimate all-around helper now. He knows how to take good care of his 2 younger siblings when am not around. He does annoys me with his tricks but I love him for what and who he is.