I have always wanted to document Jah’s and Bella’s birth stories but never quite acted on that thought. To avoid any further procrastination and with the encouragement of some wonderful mummy bloggers who have recently done the same.  I have decided that there is no better time to document Jah’s birth story than now, given that my little boy will be turning 4 in a few days.

The road leading up to my pregnancy with Jah was not the smoothest one, with 2 miscarriages and a lot of heart pain before we could finally got to ‘enjoy’ being pregnant with our first child. For that story, click here.

While I was fortunate enough not to be plagued with horrible morning sickness, I basically had ‘whole day sickness’ till the 20^th week or so which pretty much stopped me from eating most things or anything. I didn’t puke but I also didn’t feel like eating anything at all. I didn’t put on any weight in my initial months of pregnancy but thankfully Jah continued to gain weight and he was a whooping 3.6kg (based on the scans) by the time we were at 36 weeks.

So yes we were pretty eager to have him out, like most first time parents normally are (until they realize its really easier if they stayed in :p) Also because of an old back injury (fractured tailbone), I was very worried that my tailbone would snap again during labour if Jah turned out to be too big.

During the last few weeks leading up to the birth, we spent almost every visit asking/ convincing/ psychoing our gynae that perhaps we should consider a c-section or that perhaps we should induce the birth soon. On hindsight, I think it was not so much the fact that we wanted Jah out fast or that I was soooo worried about my old injury but more so because I’m just a total control freak who needed to know exactly when it was going to happen. Yes and I now know…it doesn’t work that way. :p

I honestly can’t for the life of me, remember exactly how it happened or why our gynae was suddenly for an induction but on the morning of 8 Nov 2011 (during a routine gynae appointment) at 38 weeks, our gynae decided that we could potentially consider an induction (if we wanted to). Oh we wanted to! This was perfect for my plan! I didn’t want that off chance that I might go into labour on 11 Nov 2011 (11/11/11) and be in a crowded hospital with lots of planned births. I really wanted to be discharged by then so that my child didn’t have to ‘fight it out’ in a crowded nursery. Yes control freak you say and yes such strange frivolous thoughts!  The ‘Now-Me’ would have tried to slap some sense into the ‘Then-Me’.

We were told to come back later that night at 12 midnight for the induction. So off we went to prep the house with the final ‘touches’ (Joel was cleaning the house up till the very last minute before we left for the hospital). So no wonderful ‘last’ meal before the birth for us, we didn’t realize that we should probably have jumped at that chance for one ‘last’ leisurely meal. 😦

We turned up at 12 midnight at the hospital, did our registration and I was promptly sent to the observation ward to commence the induction process. I was given the first pill to kickstart the contraction process and was told to head to my room for some rest before ‘reporting’ at 5am again for the 2^nd pill (it was 2am by then). Both Joel and I were too excited to catch a wink and honestly I wish someone had told me about walking around to quicken the induction process.

I was given the 2^nd pill at 5am and then given some help to clear my bowels (ok we shall not go into details here). I was kept at the observation ward and the nurse would come every 1 to 2 hours to check on the state of my dilation. I was also put on an Oxytocin drip to help bring on the contractions and to help with the dilation process.

By 8am, I was only 1.5cm dilated and that’s when my gynae decided to go ahead and burst my waterbag, hoping that this would push me along (no pun intended). I was told that based on my progress, Jah should be out by 3pm.

The moment my gynae told me that he was going to burst my waterbag, I immediately requested for an epidural. I remembered reading that the contractions were going to be really painful without the cushion of a waterbag and I was also not going to take the chance of it being too late for an epidural (you can’t have one if you are more than 8cm dilated).

I was given my epidural about 45 minutes after they burst my waterbag. On hindsight, I probably should have just waited. The epidural gave me such horrible side effects for the next few hours that it was probably much worse than any labour contractions that I would have had to go through. I was shivering and shaking uncontrollably. I couldn’t sit up or hold a proper conversation. In fact I couldn’t even sit up to vomit. Yes I was throwing up repeatedly. It was such an out of body experience and I truly felt like I was going to die or if not someone should just kill me because I was utterly miserable to say the least. I think Joel was equally miserable because all he could do was hold my hair while I put my guts out (it was mainly water because I hadn’t eaten since 10pm the night before).

By the time 3pm came around, I was only 4cm dilated but we were all still hopeful that we were not too long off from 10cm. I remember a furry of activities around me at about 530pm, nurses coming in and out and then my gynae rushing it to check on me. I thought that this was it..I must be 10cm dilated now. My gyane comes in and tells us that I was still only 4cm dilated and that we would need to do an emergency c-section because Jah was in distress and he was trying hard to come out but the dilation was not enough. Basically there was pressure forming at the top of his head from trying to force his way out and so they had to switch off the oxytocin, slow down the contractions and allow him to ‘take a break’. I was too tired and too out of it from the epidural side-effects to even care about whether it was a natural birth or a c-section. All I wanted was for it to be over and for Jah to be safely in our arms.

I was prepped for the emergency c-section and I remembered myself asking the nurse “what if I have to puke during the operation”? Thankfully I managed to, just before the operation started and it was smooth sailing thereafter.  Joel joined me for the emergency c-section and I remembered him watching/ checking Jah as he was being weighed (3.745kg! – yes that skinny boy now was 3.745kg at birth). I remembered Jah being put on my chest after that and I remembered that breathless feeling…I’m not sure if it was from the 3.745kg weight on my chest or from the fact that he is now our responsibility 🙂

I remember Jah and Joel leaving the operation theatre together while I was being stitched back up and prepped for recovery. I remember being back in my hospital bed with a chubby Jah in my arms. I’m not sure if it was from sheer exhaustion or effects of medication/ pain relief but I remember nothing about what happened after I gave birth and before I held Jah again in my arms.  But perhaps that’s all I need to remember…how difficult it was to have him and how precious he is to us.

Our precious first bundle of joy was born on 9 November 2011.

Happy 4^th Birthday my little boy!

JahBella’s Mummy and JahBella’s Papa!