14th September 2011 , Posted by Dannie
Push
NOTE: The wife and I decided to write this particular story separately and post them up together. Thought it would be interesting to see if we remembered the same things!
It was Sunday morning. I woke and rolled over to the wife, intending to give her a light kiss on her forehead. But she was already awake, and gazing intently at me, hand on her swollen belly.
“I’ve been having contractions since about 6am.”
“Huh? Oh, okay. You think it might be today?”
“Dunno. Still quite far apart. Not painful.”
“Hm. Are you still okay to go over to Roy’s place for lunch as planned?”
“Yeah. Just bring THE BAG along.”
I patted the bulge of her belly, asking my daughter to give me another 2 more hours on my Playstation 3, so that I can get all the trophies for the game Darksiders.
And so the day passed. Lah dee dah.
Which is why it was kinda surreal that at 9.07pm, we found ourselves at KKH. The wife was brought to a room where the nurses checked on her dilatation. Husbands not allowed. For that hour or so, my mind was bouncing back and forth between three chains of thoughts:
1) Oh my god, I’m going to be a daddy soon. Like, REALLY soon.
2) I wonder if we can be considered as admitted only after 12 midnight. Remember, the standard check in time for 3D2N delivery staycation at KKH starts at midnight. Check in at 9pm ä¸åįŽ (not worth the money!).
3) Damn, I’m hungry. Since I’m out here and she’s in there, I wonder if it’s okay for me to quickly pop down to McDonalds…
At 10pm, we found ourselves in the maternity ward. Within the next half hour, the contractions started hurting. The wife was groaning almost non-stop. It seemed like contractions were coming every 2-3 minutes! And yet, she was only about 1.5cm dilated. Still, when the wife is in unbearable pain, it is the husband’s duty to get help from the nurses.
In the maternity ward, just before the pain hits
At 11.20pm, we were brought down to the delivery suite. Nurse showed us how to adjust her bed. “This brings the back up. This brings the back down. This brings the knees up. This brings the knees down.” “Where are the frickin’ lasers?”, I asked her. She didn’t get it. Sigh. Wife starts inhaling laughing gas with each contraction. If I were to gauge her pain level on how loudly she groans, then it would seem that the laughing gas wasn’t helping at all.
Interestingly enough, the staff at KKH seem to have a funny way of gauging pain. They ask the patient,”On a PAIN SCALE of 1 to 10, what are you feeling now?” I’m sure it took a whole lot of patience for the wife not to scream WHAT THE…. DUCK! at them. Breathe in, try to stay calm and remember that these people are here to help you.
At around midnight, I decided that the wife’s PAIN SCALE was starting to impact my EMPATHY SCALE, so I went out to ask for an epidural for her. Got chased out of the room, but within half an hour, the pain had receded enough for us to both get some sleep. Hey, there’s a La-Z-Boy couch in the delivery suite for the husband! Whoo hoo!
At this point in time, I must confess… I have often wondered what I would do while the wife was in labour. I mean, by all accounts, it takes 10 hours to get dilated to 10cm, before the pushing can start. Is it okay for me to sleep while she’s in pain? Play games? I even told the wife that I would stitch together our video footage of dolphins from the Maldives while waiting for the pushing to finally start, and got her approval. Well, that didn’t happen. We just fell into a deep slumber. *snore*
At 6am, I woke suddenly with a start. Was my baby already born without me knowing? I reached over and gently poked Yi Lin’s tummy. Nope. Still there. But rattled at the prospect of missing the birth of my first child, I decided to wash up and so some stretching to wake my body up. No more snoozing!
7am, and the nurse who was checking on us all night came in to tell us that she was going off as her shift had ended. (THANK YOU, SHANN!) I felt a little perturbed at losing a familiar face right before one of the most important moments of my life. But the next nurse that came in proved just as competent, with a bedside manner that was just as good. (THANK YOU, PUAY LING!)
At about 8am, Puay Ling (Oh man, I really hope I got her name right…) came in and started with the final preparations. Engaged in some cheerful small talk while she was preparing her stuff. “Have you decided on your daughter’s name?”
“Yes, we’re going to call her Colette.”
“Nice name! Colette will be coming out to see you pretty soon…”
This is how the nurse knows that we're going to have a baby girl
8.30am. Our doctor popped in. Reassured us that she was around, and would be present to deliver the baby. Whew. Then she left us, to start off her appointments for the day.
Yi Lin soon started feeling the contractions growing stronger, and Puay Ling took charge of us again. She wanted Yi Lin to start pushing at the start of every contraction.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”
I raised my eyes and stared at Yi Lin in surprise. What the hell was that? She sounded like Mini-me in this clip, at 0:46. Before I could say anything to show that I remembered the lessons that she had obviously forgot from antenatal class, Puay Ling had already chided Yi Lin, and asked her to not emit any sounds, so as to conserve energy. She also revised the breathing and pushing technique with Yi Lin. Good thing it is nothing complex. 
I was also busy during this time, of course.
- First priority, stay near Yi Lin’s head. I didn’t want to risk fainting at the side of blood. But standing near Yi Lin’s head will not help me avoid the sight. After all, it’s not like she’s a giraffe. I found a low stool that I could squeeze into the gap beside her bed. Sitting in the stool meant that my elevation was decreased, and it was absolutely possible for me to avoid seeing all that blood.
- Second priority, count! We had learnt during antenatal class that each push was supposed to be 15 seconds long. So I counted off the seconds military-style. One-thousand, two-thousand, three-thousand, four-thousand, five-thousand! One-thousand, two-thousand, three-thousand, four-thousand, ten-thousand! One-thousand, two-thousand, three-thousand, four-thousand, fifteen-thousand! Three pushes of 15 seconds each, then a rest before the next contraction comes.
- Third priority, hold her leg up when pushing. Unlike what we normally see in the movies, there were no stirrups. So Nurse Puay Ling holds up one leg by leaning against the sole of Yi Lin’s left foot. I, the dutiful husband, helped Yi Lin hold up her other foot by pulling back on her thigh, just above her knee. Since Yi Lin was also pulling her leg back in that position, my hand nicely covered hers, and I hope she felt a small sense of comfort through my touch.
- Fourth priority, double-check with the nurse that the doctor would indeed be called back to deliver the baby. Because, seriously, all this pushing was going on, and the doctor was not around to snip the perineum? (For the uninitiated, this process is called an episiotomy, and it’s simply a nice, non-horrific way of saying “cut her c***-by”)
- Fifth priority…. aw, damn it! There was no fifth priority, because Priority One got screwed up. Nurse Puay Ling left the delivery suite to place a call for the doctor, and while she was gone, the next contraction came. Guess who had to reach over to hold up Yi Lin’s left leg in addition to her right leg? And guess what he saw? *shudder*. And guess who did not faint? *beams*
Then the nurse came back in, and changed the rules for Priority Two. “The first push is when you have the most energy. Push as long as you can, then each subsequent push can be shorter.” Well, now I started feeling a little stupid counting to only 15. Because she was still pushing! Then I carried on counting past 15, but it wasn’t any better because I didn’t know when to stop counting. Ah well.
“Come on, mummy, push just a little harder! I can see a little of your baby Charlotte now!”
Whuh-what? Who the heck is Charlotte? Ah whatever, I was too busy counting to correct the nurse.
“Just a little more… doctor is coming to deliver Charlotte soon!”
“Her name is not Charlotte! It’s Colette!” Yi Lin snapped at her. Inappropriate as it was, I was trying damned hard not to laugh out loud.
The doctor finally came back into the delivery suite. One look and she declared,”Two more pushes and your baby will be out.” She settled herself in a chair between Yi Lin’s legs.
The final big push came.
“One-thousand, two-thousand…” <snip, snip> (Holy crap! Why is the snipping so loud? I’d better count louder to drown out the noise)
“Three-thousand, four-thousand…” <SNIP, SNIP>
“FIVE-THOUSAND. ONE THOUSAND, TWO THOUSAND…” <SNIP, SNIP, SNIP>
“FOUR-THOUSAND, TEN THOUSAND!” I was pretty much shouting now.
Then, suddenly, one of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard. A gurgling cry, as if someone was underwater. Then the gurgling cleared up as fresh air entered into the lungs of my baby girl. Finally, a clear, sharp cry.
Colette Cho is finally born at 9.27am. New Achievement Unlocked!
Mother and baby having their first skin-to-skin contact
Posted on : September 14, 2011
Filed under : Mums- & Dads-to-be, New Mums & Dads
7 Comments
Alex
September 15th, 2011 at 2:08 am
You did well Dan! Congrats!
rachel
September 15th, 2011 at 6:03 am
big congrats to 2 of you!!
welcome to sleep deprived club!
Tracy Su
September 15th, 2011 at 7:14 am
Wow, the wife’s gas and air version is VERY different from yours!
*crosses legs* *TIGHT*
Karen tey
September 16th, 2011 at 2:37 am
Congrats! Colette’s a beauty!
peter lim
September 16th, 2011 at 3:03 am
Congrats Dan and Yilin! All of us at I LOVE CHILDREN are so happy for you!!! May God bless your little Colette to become a woman after His own heart!
Jessica Toh
September 18th, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Dan, your post is harilious as you. Love your post, proud daddy!!
Dannie
October 11th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Hi all!
Thanks for the congrats! It certainly is an experience worth remembering. I’m grateful that this Maybebaby blog ‘forces’ me to record my experience. Otherwise, I suspect that the memory will fade. Wouldn’t that be a shame!
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