Part 3: D-Day

I had two EDDs given by two different gynaes. The first gynae I went to set my EDD as Oct 30. Dr X at TMC brought forward my EDD to Oct 26. My final gynae, Dr Mary Rauff, took Oct 30 as my official EDD.
Nuha was born on Nov 5 at 12.23am. She missed her Daddy’s birthday by 23min. Going by the official EDD (Oct 30), she was a week overdue. Had we stayed on with Dr X, I would have most probably been induced for labour.

As I mentioned before, I had a very pleasant pregnancy. I was extremely happy (almost all the time), I was positive about everything, I didn’t throw up, I didn’t have headaches or backaches or backside-aches. The only discomfort I had was when my pelvic bone, in its enthusiasm in preparing for labour, began separating as early as my 20th week. Apart from that, I really had the perfect pregnancy. I ate well but didn’t put on too much (oklah, 12kg in total), I could walk for kilometres during job assignments, I happily snorkelled for hours in the Maldives. I was blessed.
I bet Nuha, too, was extremely happy in my tummy – which probably explains why she was reluctant to come out into this world. I started my maternity leave on 25 Oct, just five days before my EDD. I didn’t want to waste my precious leave during pregnancy because I was certain I wanted to spend as much time with my babe as possible. I extended my leave further and took two months of unpaid leave. This would give me an uninterrupted six months with Nuha, thus establishing breastfeeding and attachment.
Oct 30 came and went. My tummy just got bigger and I became more restless. I looked out for any signs of tummy discomfort that could possibly be Braxton Hicks but nothing happened. In an attempt to kickstart labour naturally, I did lots of walking, squats and stair-climbing. Still nothing. As promised in my birth plan, I was due for my membranes to be swept at 40.5 weeks or Nov 3.
On the morning of Nov 2, I woke up at 9.45am and thought I peed in my sleep. My panties and pyjama pants were wet. Finally, I thought, I’ll be going into labour. I called Adil who was at work and excitedly asked him to come home. I then SMSed Ginny (doula) to inform her about my wet pants. She told me to get lots of rest and try to sleep. Sleep? You kidding me? I was too excited about seeing my baby for the first time.
I showered, checked my hospital bag and put aside the clothes I planned to wear to the hospital. Before this I had planned on labouring at home as long as possible but my waterbag bursting did not present the most ideal situation. I was tested GBS positive which means that my baby might be at risk of being infected by life-threatening bacteria once the waterbag is gone. Most doctors recommend that the mother be administered antibiotics 12 hours after the waterbag has burst to prevent the baby getting infected. I read up and figured that the baby should be safe for at least 24 hours. This means the latest I should go to the hospital would be 9am the following day (Nov 4).
I put on a sanitary pad and waited for the contractions to come. Nothing happened. Adil came home at 11.30am with chicken rice and ice kacang for me. I ate with gusto, keeping in mind that I’d need the energy to push later.
We returned to our bedroom after lunch, switched on the aircon, put on some nice music and pulled the curtains to darken the room. I tried to sleep. But as the hours passed, I couldn’t help but worry about the lack of contractions. My sanitary pad was also dry. By 4pm, I was becoming very restless and felt like I needed to get out of the house. I also felt like eating some hot fluffy chapatis.
So at 5pm, Adil, my mum and I went to Geylang Serai Market to feast on some chapatis. Alas, the stall was closed so we did some tudung shopping instead. That cheered me up somewhat. Shopping never fails to cheer me up.
I started feeling some random contractions at around 9pm that night. I felt quite relieved but the contractions were not regular and it didn’t look like I was going to give birth anytime soon. By then, I knew that I couldn’t escape the antibiotics the next morning.
Contractions came and went randomly throughout the night. By 1am, Adil and I decided that we should go to the hospital at 8am because GBS is scary. We woke up at 6am, showered, prayed and left home. My mum had already left for work. I kissed and hugged my father goodbye like I was going to war. Very emotional.
I had one final request before going to the hospital. I wanted a McDonald’s breakfast (yes, I was greedy and wanted to eat all the time). We had a leisurely breakfast and called Ginny again to tell her we would be going to the hospital. Are you sure, she asked. I said I needed the damn antibiotics because GBS is scary. She asked if I’d been steadily leaking water. I said no, the only time water leaked was yesterday morning. After much discussion over the phone, we came to the conclusion that my waterbag was most likely still intact. It leaked but did not burst. Hurrah!
I was ecstatic because it meant I didn’t have to surrender myself to the hospital. I could go home. I finished my breakfast in high spirits and walked out of the McDonalds in East Coast. And that was where it happened. Right there at the carpark. My waterbag burst. This time for real. It was like water gushing out of a pipe. I was so stunned I just stood there like a kid who peed her pants. I turned to Adil and said: “Okay, our 24 hours (to get the antibiotics) start from now.”
Much to my father’s surprise, I was back at home two hours after “going to give birth”. I took a nap at 10am and was awakened 45min later by mild contractions. I tried to pass the time by reading a book. I had beef noodles for lunch and Awfully Chocolate ice-cream and cupcake for tea. Adil pampers me.
My contractions were not getting any more frequent by 9pm that night. We Skyped with Ginny and she taught me how to do belly lifts to speed up labour. We also decided to go to the hospital by 4am no matter what happened because I needed antibiotics for the GBS.
I went to bed but barely got any sleep. I was frustrated with my body. Why aren’t my contractions coming faster than they should? At 4am, once again we showered and left home. This time both my parents were home. I kissed and hugged them like I was going for war. And this time, there was no more coming back home. This time it was for real.
The roads and highways were deserted as we drove to the hospital. It was a very pleasant early morning drive. We reached the hospital at 4.30am only to find that every single delivery suite was occupied except for one (which wasn’t equipped for waterbirthing). The hospital staff assured us that they’d move us to the water birth suite as soon as it was available.
Like a good girl, I got into bed and obediently gave the hospital staff details of my labour thus far. I got raised eyebrows and frowns when I told them my waterbag had burst 18 hours ago. A female doctor did a VE and I thought I was going to die. It was the most painful thing ever and I hated her. She said I was 3-4 cms dilated. Ginny was happy and said some encouraging stuff. I wasn’t paying much attention because I was busy thinking murderous thoughts of that doctor who just treated me like a cow in a James Herriot story.
At Ginny’s coaxing, I tried to get some sleep but felt like an invalid on the bed. So Adil slept on the bed while I slept on the armchair. Hanani came to take Ginny’s place at 9am. We yakked like I wasn’t labouring. The woman in the water birth suite finally gave birth and I got to switch rooms. While waiting for them to clean up the suite, I chatted with Hanani at the corridors. By then I could feel my contractions getting a tad stronger and coming more regularly, about 15min apart.
By 10am I was settled happily in the water birth suite that I wanted. I changed into a pretty pink pyjama dress which I’d bought specially for labour. Adil set up his laptop and played our favourite songs and a slideshow of happy holiday photos which he had prepared. My ION Orchard scent was placed by the bedside.
At 1pm Adil and Hanani tried to persuade me to eat some lunch. I normally love Delifrance quiches but that day, I really had no appetite. I could still yak a lot though. I chatted with Hanani happily and watched Wheel of Fortune on TV, solving the puzzles before the contestants and shouting out at the TV.
At 2pm, I had another VE. It was extremely painful and I wanted to kill that doctor as well. I was dilated 5cm. By then I was getting quite tired. When is this ever going to end? I dilated 2cm in 8 hours. That’s an average of four hours for every cm. At this rate, I’d have to wait another day before I give birth. Ginny asked if I wanted to speed up my labour and I agreed. So I was put on pitocin.
Once the pitocin was administered, I could not sit down and yak happily anymore. Each time a contraction came, I stood up and swayed my hips. In hindsight I do not know why I did that. But at that point of time it just felt like the most natural thing to do. Hanani applied some hot compresses to my back and that really helped with the pain.
At around 4pm, the contractions became markedly more painful. I asked to go into the tub. I had another VE, this time by Dr Rauff herself. It was a gentle VE and I was grateful. I was 7cm dilated. I was taken off the Pitocin and went into the water.
The water was a welcome relief. I swear I felt less pain in the water. By around this time, I don’t really have a clear memory of what happened exactly. Events became rather fuzzy. I remember the dark bathroom and being in the calming, warm water. I remember being told to breathe through my contractions and Ginny asking me if I wanted the water to be a little warmer. I also remember the nursing staff coming in often to adjust the fetal monitor belt around my waist. That was a nuisance because I really just wanted to focus on I breathing through each contraction. Somehow, once real labour kicked in, I became pretty quiet and just wanted to be left alone.
The next four hours were a blur. I remember getting out of the tub at some point, putting on my new fluffy bathrobe and then sitting on the toilet. I think the toilet bowl was my favourite place when I was labouring. It felt a lot more comfortable sitting there, I don’t know why. Hanani snapped some pictures of me labouring and weeks later when I looked at the camera, I saw some shots of me on the toilet and Adil sitting across me and patting my tummy. He was talking to my tummy and trying to reason with the baby to come out faster.
I think at some point the nursing staff realised that the pitocin was causing distress to the baby. They took me off pitocin and also got me out of the water because they needed to monitor the baby’s heartbeat better.
I don’t remember what time that was but once out of the water, I remembered being in extreme pain whenever the contractions came. They forced the oxygen mask on me which made me feel suffocated and didn’t make me breathe better at all. Someone should destroy that thing. I wanted to go back to the jacuzzi tub or toilet bowl that has become my ‘sanctuary’. But that was not possible because they needed to monitor the baby.
The odd thing was even at this time, my contractions were still coming every 10 minutes or so, like it did 12 hours ago.
I think I had another VE sometime then and I was 9cm dilated AND the baby was not in the optimum position. I no longer had the energy to resist my VEs or think murderous thoughts of the doctor who did it. I was just tired and I wanted the whole ordeal to end. At that point of time, had someone suggested cutting me open to get the baby out, I think I would have readily agreed.
Back to the story. I was suffering on the bed and Hanani was at my ear asking me to recite some du’as. I tried repeating after her but I think I was just mumbling some mumbo jumbo. Amidst my daze, I overheard Dr Rauff, Adil and Ginny speaking in hushed tones by the door and I heard words like “fetal distress” and “emergency caesarian”. My heart sank. What is happening to me? Why isn’t the baby coming out? Must I really have a caesarian after all those hours of labour?
I didn’t realise this but according to Hanani, at this time, she asked Adil to make one final plea to the Almighty. So Adil made some du’as over my tummy and believe it or not, I suddenly felt the most painful grinding sensation on my pubic bone. I don’t think there’s an English term for it but in Malay, we call in ngilu. It made me want to clamp my legs together and bite down my lip. I remember repeatedly telling Hanani that I felt ngilu. I think Hanani said something like, “Dee, the baby is turning! Alhamdulillah she’s turning!”
Minutes after that, I felt the urge to push. The nursing staff encouraged me to do so and so I pushed and pushed as hard as I could while lying on my side on the bed. But it was just plain uncomfortable pushing on the bed. So I appealed to Dr Rauff to allow me to get back into the water. Please, I said. She said okay.
So at about 9.30pm, I got back into the jacuzzi tub and started pushing whenever a contraction came, which was once every 10 minutes. Even the doctor found it odd.

So this was how my pushing went: The doctor and nurses would look at the contraction monitoring machine while I sit there in the water. Once my contraction came, they would cheer and shout for me to push as hard as I could. So I pushed and pushed like my eyeballs were going to pop out. Long and hard. They could see the baby’s hair peeking out but then the contraction would go away and the baby would slide back in. By the time the next contraction came 10 minutes later, the baby would be back in its original position as though I never pushed at all.
So this pushing business went on for two hours. I remember this part very clearly because I really had to work very hard. I remember wondering if it was possible for my eyeballs to shoot out from the sheer force of my pushing. Anyway, I was getting tired and Dr Rauff could see that this pushing thing was going nowhere. So she asked me if I’d like some help. What kind of help, I asked. She said that she can hold the baby’s head in place with a vacuum in between contractions so that the baby won’t slide back up. But I’d still have to do all the pushing work myself. I agreed immediately.
So for the last time that night, I got out of the jacuzzi tub and obediently climbed back into bed.  I never imagined myself giving birth this way, with both my legs splayed open, surrounded by my husband, my doctor, two doulas and at least three nursing staff. All these women and one man cheering me to push and counting 1, 2, 3, 4….as I pushed and pushed. Thanks to the vacuum which held her in place, the baby crowned after two contractions.
No wonder people call this moment the ‘ring of fire’. I felt like I was being burnt and stung under there and for a split second, I actually wanted to stuff the baby back in. The only thing that kept me back was an even greater desire for this whole ordeal to end asap.
Nuha fully emerged after some pushes and belted out a string of loud hearty cries.

She was put on my chest, which was uncomfortable because my head was positioned lower than my body at that time. I looked up and just stared at her as she cried and looked back at me. I don’t know who was more relieved at that time – me or her – that the birth was over.
I put her to my breasts and she latched on like an expert. It was apparent by then that I have an extremely lazy uterus. My placenta refused to emerge so I was put on pitocin again. But by then I was back to my happy, chirpy self. As Dr Rauff stitched me up, I told her about how my mother took 40 hours to give birth to me and it seems like I’ve come full circle.
Nuha was checked and weighed right there in the delivery room where we could still see her. She weighed a healthy 3.87kg. My parents were shocked when they heard this because they were expecting a smaller baby haha. I wasn’t surprised because I ate a lot of cookies during Hari Raya. All that butter and sugar had to go somewhere.
So was I happy with my birth experience? Definitely. Considering how slowly my labour progressed and how my contractions casually came 10 minutes apart right til the end, I could have easily ended up with an emergency c-section. Labouring in the water brought huge relief and even though I gave birth on land, I had no regrets trying for a water birth.

Will I try for a water birth the next time? Yes I will. When will that be? Not anytime soon, insyaAllah 🙂