Motherhood -Birth Process

23rd April 2015 marked a special day for me. It started right at 12am where my contraction started. I felt a dull pain in my tummy with occasion lower backache. I brushed it off at first as I thought it was a false alarm since the Estimated Due Date was still a few days away. However the pain just haunted me and I decided to time the pain. My Ob told me that if the pain came every 7 minutes, then the baby is ready to come out. I downloaded a contraction app and time my contraction. 3 min, 5 min, 7 min, 3 min , 5 min , 5 min..... and it just go on until I felt very frustrated because it's affecting my sleep. At 3am, I felt a gush of water drip down and I figured it could be a water bag burst. I went to put a pad and try to sleep instead. My contraction still didn't happen at a fix interval and I wasn't bleeding so I don't think it's urgent to call my OB. The contraction just came on and off until 5am I decided to call my OB because the pain was affecting my sleep and I need to work! Anyway I had an appointment with him the next day and I wanted to check if I can go on that day. He was in the midst of sleeping and I recalled he mentioned 'Just go to the hospital', The reason why I did not head to the hospital earlier on is because I heard of cases where mummies went to the hospital with 'false contraction' or it's not fully dilated, only to be send home to wait.

So after receiving the 'green light' to go to the hospital, I went to shower and called my parents to pick me and send me to the hospital. As it was early in the morning at 6.30am, I brought them to the nearby coffeeshop for some breakfast. We finished at 7am and my brother drove me to the hospital.
Hubby went to work and told me he would rush down after his lesson .

When I reached the hospital, I was ushered to the maternity ward where I was examined by the mid wife. They checked my dilation and it was 3cm , well,it's not ready but I don't have to go back because my membrane had broke as well. They informed my OB and he arrived shortly after to examine me. He asked me to wait in the room for the dilation to increase and he would come in the afternoon. The nurse prepared me for the birth by giving me the suppository to clear my bowel and put some monitoring equipment to check on my blood pressure. They also put on the urine tube so that my urine can be passed automatically and I wasn't supposed to have any food intake or drink.. 

I told the nurse I would like to donate my baby cord blood to the cord blood bank and I passed them the donation document which I had prepared earlier on. I also told them that I would like to have skin to skin contact after birth and to do breastfeeding. I also told them I do not want any epidural .

My mum wasn't allowed to join me in the maternity room so she left. I just relaxed and rest. While waiting, I went to text my superior and requested them to help to return my library book on 'hypno birthing' and to gave my unopened bottle of honey aloe vera drink to the cleaner aunty. I brought the drink the day before thinking of drinking it that day when I went back to office. Talking about hypnobirthing, I was thinking of doing hypnobirth where the birth occurred naturally but read on...In short,I need to flung the idea of doing so out of the window! 

Hubby arrived in the late morning after his lesson and we began to think of her English name.Well, I was inspired by the names shortlisted by the UK royal family for the princess of Prince William.The princess was also due anytime and they shortlisted 3 names for her - Alice , Charlotte and Elizabeth. I picked Alice and we explored the variable of Alice and spotted Alysia. Hubby and I thought that Alysia was nice but too mouthful. End up we named her Alice ,with her surname Tay.Amazingly it coincide with her life path number ,which is 8. The life path number based on her birthday is 8. Alice Tay is also 8. Personally I'm glad her lifepath is 8 because it's the same lifepath as me. Being an 8 means that potentially your financial status is good.For me I am not rich but my financial status is quite alright.

When the doctor arrived in the afternoon, the nurse informed my OB that I do not want any epidural. The doctor examined my dilation and I gave a sharp shout! To be honest, I felt that he did it deliberately because I could feel that he was being rough. The OB told me that my threshold of tolerance is not that high and this pain was only 1/10 of the actual labor. He advised me to go on epidural because it cannot be administered during the actual labor.. I readily agreed since it was my first birth and the OB must be very experience to see such cases and I trusted his advise.

After that he went to get another doctor to put on epidural for me and the waiting game begun. My OB told me I would delivered by end of the day. So I just relaxed and wait because I did not know what to expect during a labor.In addition, I wanted to conserve my energy until labor since I wasn't allowed any food intake.

In the evening, the nurse noticed the baby's heartbeat was low and put on the oxygen mask for me to push in more oxygen to bump up the heartbeat  rate. That happened a few times.. During the wait, I felt the contraction pain on my thigh and the nurse told me not to increase my epidural dosage because I may have difficulty pushing the baby later on. Anyway the epidural did a great job in removing most of my contraction pain and the dilation test, so I thought the pain was bearable.

Later in the evening, the midwife and nurses came and told me I was ready to give birth since the dilation is around 9-10cm. They asked me to push but I have no clue on how and what to push because I felt nothing. It could be due to the epidural. I just did my best for the next 30 min to do the 'pushing and the head appear. Just when I thought I could go natural without any episiotomy,my OB arrived.He just told me he would assist me to give birth and asked me to push. He snipped me and put the vacuum and after 3 push, the baby popped out!

The OB asked my hubby to cut the cord but before he did that, he asked my my hubby to shout 'I am your father!' for 3 times before cutting. I was relieved that he did that because it would delay the cord cutting time which allowed the cord blood to settle down before removing from the baby.The baby was wailing so hard.

The nurses told me they need to wipe the baby and did a quick checkup and injection of the vitamin K before letting me have the skin to skin contact. They took around few minutes and the baby was still crying and her voice seems to get louder and louder. Someone said her lung is pretty healthy as she's crying louder and louder.

I saw a miracle when the nurse put the baby on my neck for the skin to skin contact. The baby stopped crying immediately. I was shocked and I felt so powerful because I could stop the wailing immediately!

While calming the baby, the OB purged out my placenta and stitched me up. After that he processed the cord blood for the donation.

I was quite relieved that everything went smoothly and I was wheeled back to the ward for recuperation and my baby Alice went to the nursery. It was already 11.45pm when i was back in the ward...getting ready for a new role as a MOTHER.

Throughout my pregnancy I did not attend any prenatal course as I thought childbirth is a natural process where the baby would just pop up when they are ready.I'm sure with an experience OB , the labor would be a smooth one.

Thank you Dr Koh for helping me to deliver Alice successfully and smoothly.

To bank or donate your baby cord blood

Cord Blood is the blood that comes with the umbilical cord during the birth of the baby. In the earlier days, it was considered as a bio-waste. Today, it was medically proven that it contained rich source of stem cells that can be used to help patients with life-threatening illness! 

I got to know Cord Blood Banking after attending some child birth seminar. The seminar was sponsored by a Private Cord Blood Bank and they shared with us the benefit of banking our baby's cord blood.

In gist, here's what I gathered:

- The parents will sign a contract with this private cord blood bank which will lapse when the baby reached adult hood (21 years old).

- There is a fee for it.

- During birth, the doctor will collect the cord blood and put them into a container ,which will be courier to the Cord Blood Bank.

-  When there is a need, the parents can withdraw the cord blood at any time.

- When the baby reach 21 years old, he/she can choose to extend the contract or terminate the contract.

*What happen to the cord blood if they choose to terminate?*

Then I moved on to understand more about the public Cord Blood Bank where the Cord Blood are donated by willing parents, who have no intention of banking their baby's Cord Blood for their own use.

In gist, here's how it works:

- Registration with the Cord Blood Bank to sign the declaration form of your health status and family history of any blood disorder.

- During birth, the hospital would need submit the mother's blood sample and the baby cord blood to the public cord blood bank.

- The cord blood bank would do a lab test on the cord blood to ensure it is healthy and 'bankable'. if yes, they would proceed to do a blood test from the mother's blood sample to confirm the finding.

- After it is done, the mother would be informed of the result and the donation process is considered over.

Some Q&A that I gathered from the public Cord Blood Bank consultant:

If the cord blood is deemed as unhealthy, the family cannot retrieve back from the public cord blood bank to be transferred to a private cord blood bank. It makes sense because the cord blood would be useless if it cannot be accepted in the public cord blood bank.

If the family needs the cord blood, they can request to withdraw their own cord blood from the bank - provided it is not taken up by other patients yet.

By the way, the public Cord Blood Bank is accessible internationally too! A stem cell match is not easy to find and the hospital may have to source for a suitable match from other countries' cord blood bank if they cannot find it locally.  This means, someone from the other part of the world may be able to have his 2nd lease of life if he managed to find his match from this public cord blood bank.

In addition, this public cord blood bank has a stringent procedure to collect the cord blood. They do not accept transfer of cord blood from private cord blood bank and from home birth. They only collect them fresh from the hospital after birth.

This is what I had concluded - the difference between private and public cord blood bank.

Private Cord Blood Bank	Public Cord Blood Bank
Get to reserve your own cord blood for future needs	Not available for own retention and it is make available for donation to other people
Subscription fee is applicable	Not available since it’s based on donation
When the contract ended, the cord blood cannot be donated to the public cord blood bank	Not applicable

There’s one more thing to note , the cord blood may not be suitable for your family members or relatives in the event of complicated life threatening disease. Therefore, weighing the difference between the 2, I decided to donate my cord blood with my country public cord blood bank .(http://www.scbb.com.sg/).

Of course, I don't mean that private cord blood bank is no good.Some families DO have a needs to reserve their baby cord blood for some reason or another.

Do make a sound decision by making good use of the cord blood -  it may create miracle for another person's life!

Check out your local cord blood bank now! :)

Thoughts from my visit to the Obstetrician (OB)

* An OB is like a wise owl, assisting God to help mothers to give birth to the God's child. [To me, each and every children are God's child]

Today is my scheduled appointment with my OB. He is Dr Koh and he runs a private women's clinic near my office. His clinic are decorated with baby photos from his patients and I realized some of my friends are his patients when I ran into them during my scheduled appointment. So I think he must be quite popular because I walked in to his clinic just because his clinic is near my office.

When I went in, Dr Koh greeted me warmly with his tag "How are you,my friend?". I felt very welcome.

My mum was with me in the consultation room and I could see that he's trying to make her feel involved during the checkup by telling her the progress of the baby.

I asked him some questions about some funny symptoms I have , such as I am having difficulty finding a position to sleep without the baby kicking me violently. He told me it's normal. I also asked him where's the position of my baby like where's the head and leg, he mentioned the baby is currently still moving around. I asked this because I felt the movement coming from a usual position and I was curious what was it that move. He told me that position is the butt - well, it means that my baby is literally butting me :) The way he responded make me sense that he could be very tired.

I begin to think that OB is a noble job. Beside stationing in their clinic for consultation, they have to monitor their patient's progress and to answer their patient's calls! Most OB have 24 hr hotline and they literally have to answer calls even in the middle of the night! I feel for them and they must be very passionate in their job in order to sustain in this line for so long! I only called the hotline once during an emergency in my previous pregnancy when I was having a miscarriage and he called back and assisted me. During this pregnancy, there was once he called me personally to arrange an urgent screening because there was some abnormality in my initial health screening. Fortunately, everything was fine during my 2nd detailed screening.

During the ultra sound scan, he scanned for the head and listen to the heart beat. And he seems to know what I'm thinking (because I always pray for my baby to be a Happy baby) and he told me 'See, your baby heartbeat is telling you - Happy Happy Happy Happy'. I really felt amused when he said this. As usual, he printed a copy of the ultra sound scan and I'm quite surprised when he handed them to my mother.

Well, this is my 1st OB and I felt that he have set a reasonable high benchmark on my impression of an OB.

Overall, I felt that OBs are really as noble as the mothers they are serving. Afterall, they are helping women to transit their next phase of life as a mother!

Thank you Dr Koh!

Up and down of being pregnant

Due to pregnancy and I am feeling heavier and breathless. I'm trying to keep my stamina and mental high with my willpower and prayer!

Feeling my feet getting swollen - good thing is it started to swell heavily in evening. Which means, during the day time I can still wear my normal shoes to work.

Guess this is one of the side effect of being pregnant, other than that, I have some nice 'side effect' too!

Overwhelming contribution of baby clothes and accessories

During these few days, my cousin's colleagues passed me their hand-me-down baby clothes , accessories and toys. I am quite touched by their gesture.I had gathered more than 100 pieces of baby clothes and I concluded my baby need a bigger wardrobe than myself. I don't think I have more than 100 pieces in my wardrobe.

Chinese believed that babies should wear 'hand-me-down' clothes because it would make them a humble and grounded baby. Thinking from a logical point of view , it is to save money because baby grow very fast especially from 0-6 months! And of course, 'hand-me-down' clothes are usually softer and more comfy because they are 'pre-washed' multiple times.

One of my colleague offered to donate her baby cot and other accessories because she decided not to give birth anymore. She's my age and have a lovely son.

My friend offer to pass me her Medela freestyle but I told her I'll borrow from her to test it out before I buy them myself- for hygiene purpose.

Big thanks to my friends and colleague for the contribution!

I think once I consolidated my "loot", I'll be able to identify what is outstanding and get the other necessity items to prepare for the arrival.

Having the privilege of people giving up their seat

Well, I'm not so desperate to demand for a seat whenever I commute to work. Depending on my luck, sometime I have some kind soul giving up their seat to me and some don't. I'm always thankful whenever I have a seat because if I stand too long, I would end up a heavy bladder even though I didn't drink.

Having people to give up their seat to you is your privilege and not an entitlement.

People would be more aware of your well-being and safety

The people around me would be looking out for me and offer their help if I'm carrying bulky items or offer me a chair if I'm standing. I'm also able to ask hubby to help me with my laundry and the housework too!

All these kindness acts as a relieve to the physical change I'm encountering. I put on a lot of weight and tummy growing bigger to the extend I cannot see my legs! There was a time where I need to check if I'm wearing my undies correctly, I need to go to the mirror to check because I cannot see or bend forward! That's cruel. Soon I would probably need to go to the nail salon to cut my toe nail....

One more fun fact

My baby will insist I seat in a correct posture without touching my belly. If I did not seat straight or lean my tummy against the table or any surface, I would feel a push from inside to push it away! The feeling is like having a fish swimming in your tummy. So whenever I feel not much movement, I would do such trick to stimulate the movement from the baby. :)