metamorphosis: the unwhale-ing part I

after waiting the full 40 weeks for evie eliza to make her appearance on her own terms, her incubator got a little bit fed up with being a whale and got her doctor to admit her to the hospital to induce labour.

so, i was admitted to the hospital on the 6th of October 2008 at 8:30am, accompanied by husband and my eager parents who couldn't wait to hold their first grandchild. once admitted i was brought to the Delivery Suite where they strapped me up to a cardiotocography (CTG) machine to check on evie's heartbeat as well as my uterine contractions. i had to lie in the same position for almost an hour before a doctor came in to check my chart and gave me the all-clear to have the first prostin tablet inserted to kick-start labour.

at 10am, the nurse inserted the tablet, and then informed me that i would have to stay in position for another 2 hours so that they could continue to monitor the CTG to ensure that there was no adverse reaction to the tablet. at this point, i had my hubby call my parents who were hanging around outside to tell them to go home and rest as it looked like it was going to be a pretty long haul.

2 hours pass by and the nurse tells me that nothing odd is showing up on the CTG which is both good and bad news. good news that we haven't reacted adversely to the hormones, but bad news that it hadn't managed to start labour contractions. she said to give it a bit of time and they would check me again in a few hours.

after 2 plus hours of having to lie down in the same position, my muscles were severely protesting so it was a good thing that i got to get up after that to be shown to my bed in the hospital ward to have lunch and have a bit of a walk around before the next CTG check.

hooked up again to the CTG at 4pm to check for contractions. had some minor ones, but not good enough to be actually considered labour, so was scheduled for another round of CTG and prostin tablet at the Delivery Suite at 10pm that night. parents were still waiting around, and my grandparents had joined them by that time. told everyone to go home as it looked like i wasn't going to be popping that night.

the second tablet worked much better, triggering off contractions but my gynae decided that he wanted to insert a third to really start things off so at 10am Tuesday morning (7th October 2008), i went down again to the Delivery Suite.

the third tablet REALLY got things going in terms of the contractions, but evie's waterbag just wouldn't break so the gynae had to manually break my water at 2pm. by then i was 3cm dilated. up to that point i'd been going without any sort of pain relief whatsoever. but after the water broke, the contractions escalated so much the pain was toe-curling unbearable. so i wimped out and opted for an epidural.

BEST THING INVENTED...

the pain just magically vanished although i could still feel pressure whenever there was a contraction. it didn't take long from then on to get me to be fully dilated. even the nurse was surprised when she came in about an hour later and i'd progressed from 3cm to 8cm. they had to call the doctor to come back quickly as he was away from the hospital. he'd expected me to deliver at around 9pm, but at 5pm the nurse said evie was on her way out.

i shall not describe in graphic detail the actual birth here. if you really want to know, i'm willing to share, but not here on my blog. the pain was incredible, never went through anything quite as excrutiating as that in my entire life. but you know it was really worth it when i heard evie cry and they put her in my arms. my hubby has a video of me bursting into tears when i held her.

honestly, it's the biggest achievement of my life.

lots of photos in metamorphosis: the unwhale-ing part II