The Birth Story

Nobody ever gives you the low down or the full story of what to expect when you deliver a child. The books never dare to commit to one general experience of child-bearing. Your friends try to make it sound like it wasn't as bad as you think it can be.

And you think you know exactly what to expect, until you walk into the delivery ward with your overnighter and realise....you are scared shitless.
This is Grayden's mommy, and this is my story. Pointblank, zero sugar coating.

I was scheduled for an induced delivery so heading to the hospital was sans all the cliche drama and more like checking-in to board a midnight plane. We get into the delivery suite closer to one. As Hubby gets me admitted and registered, I am ushered into a delivery ward and told to pee on a stick and get changed into a robe.

Now is the moment, I actually start to feel nervous. You don't really know what to expect. Then the nurse comes in and tells me, she is going to administer "the bullet". For those none the wiser, it's something they give to you - from the rear - and before you can count to 5, you run to the toilet faster than a speeding bullet, to empty out your bowels. Horrid experience although bolstered slightly by the fact that you feel kind of bowel-empty-elation.

After that, the induction begins. This is not a pleasant experience. But it will be over quickly. Then we wait.

Monitor that charts the fetal heartbeat and the peaks (pains) and trough (rest periods) of the contractions

The night wears on. Occasionally a commotion stirs in the neighbouring wards which often ends with a few people shouting push and a baby's sharp first cry that serves to propel a first-time anxious mother into a frenzy.

Finally, @ 545am, I feel contractions. They come hard and fast. The monitor clocks the size of each contraction to be 127 - the highest peak. As my Gynae always says, pain is over-rated, so at 630am, I suppose I experience enough to know what labour pains feel like and declared my need for epidural.

0701 - the wonder drug kick in. I must say the procedural administration of epidural is more fearful than the actual injection. Within 10 minutes, the back becomes absolutely pain free and I have not felt this comfortable in the last 9 months. I could finally sleep flat on my back and started my great nap till 1119am when it was time to start the second phase - pushing.

The epidural had finished just when my Gynae said it was time to start pushing. Thankfully it's not like a light switch, it managed to keep me numb from pain in my lower body for another good 4 hours, till I was lying in my hospital bed.

The pushing and getting Grayden out was the hardest part of the labour process. It is mega tiring. Pushing on an empty stomach for an hour really takes it's tow on the body and it's a rather nauseating and tiring experience. But with each contraction, and the cheering on from the nurse and mid-wife, hubby and gynae, I just gave my best, sucked in and pushed and prayed I wouldn't end in a C-section. And just when I was about to peng-san, I felt a suction and a sudden emptiness in the womb and out came a tiny grey blob.

Finally after an hour, at 12:49pm, with an assisted vacuum from the gynae, Grayden was delivered. Flashing the world and welcoming his parents with open arms.

The experienced nurses got him cleaned up in a jiffy and weighted him. 2.56kg my little runt.

Measured and clothed while he dazes, probably in curiosity.

And then, he's neatly bundled and wrapped up. So in a nutshell, that's the sequence of events that lead up to babies looking exactly like one another, mass produced in hospital plastic beds with Barney or Pooh stickers.