My surprise labour and delivery

Who would've thought that a routine appointment with my OBGYN would end up with me delivering my firstborn?

Funnily enough, I just sent an email to people I work with the day before, stating that I wouldn't be checking emails often from that day forward because I'd be prepping for childbirth (aka I'd be preparing the baby's space and supplies two weeks before I was scheduled to give birth).

Anyway, I just finished my prenatal exam when I noticed that I was bleeding. I checked with my OBGYN if the bleeding was normal; she told me to rest for a few minutes for observation. She then conducted more tests on me and determined that it was safer for me to deliver the baby at this point in my pregnancy than to wait for my baby to go full-term.

So instead of going to Happy Lemon for my weekly boba tea fix, I drove straight home and explained to Mommy that I was being sent to the hospital's Labour and Delivery unit for induced labour. She was scared, to put it lightly. After packing a bag for me and the wee one, I drove to the hospital. The nurses at the station assigned me to one birthing suite. Mommy was still on the clock while working from home while Anna and Daddy were still doing their shifts in the Veterans' Centre so I was all alone during the beginning of the labour process. But Mommy arrived on the first evening to be with me to the finish line (of pregnancy). Anna and Daddy couldn't be with us because of the hospital regulations for preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Going-to-labour tip: Don't pack too many clothes for yourself for the trip home. In my case, I ended up wearing Lululemon leggings that I had worn when I entered the hospital upon discharge, and one the shirts I use in barre class. The whole time I was in hospital, I was wearing a hospital gown.

Since I wasn't full term yet, the doctor had to induce labour by first softening (or ripening) my cervix for 12 hours; followed by a steady drip of oxytocin to start the contractions during labour and after delivery. Then the OBGYN ruptured the amniotic sac. At some point, I asked for an epidural already because I didn't want to experience the pain of the contractions... and I didn't want to ask for it when it's too late (read: when the baby's head had started descending my pelvic bone).

Not counting the ripening stage, I was in labour for around 18 hours, if my foggy memory of what transpired can be trusted. This was followed by one hour of pushing the baby out. I asked Mommy to leave each time a procedure had to be done on me (e.g., checking cervical effacement and dilation,  rupturing the membrane, insertion of the catheter for the epidural and the catheter for urine) because I was worried that she might pass out. However, during my delivery, she was beside me and acting like a labour coach.

And here's another thing: when the wee one came out, he was bigger than I expected (I thought babies are born tiny). However, he's quite small compared to other babies; considering that he's not full-term yet, it's okay, I thought. His pediatrician recommended that I feed my baby ad libitum, perhaps to allow him to catch up on weight now that he's outside.

After my OBGYN finished cleaning me up (read: suturing the tears brought about by the delivery), I was allowed to rest for a few hours with the baby in the room with us. Then it was time for the trip to the Mommy-and-Baby unit where we'd continue our recovery and have our first check-ups. Transferring from the bed to the wheelchair made me faint. Good thing that Mommy had some biscuits for me to eat (I wasn't allowed food intake once the oxytocin was given to me) during the five-minute journey to our new room.

I had a lot of bad dreams about how painful delivery could be. Thanks but no thanks to all the television shows that portrayed the delivery process. It turned out that with pain management, my labour and delivery, though a surprise, was not as bad as I had imagined.

Now the real challenge of parenting begins... at home.