Delivery with Epidural @ Mount Alvernia

(Spoiler alert: for moms-to-be who wants to be surprised on your delivery day, read no further. For those who chanced upon this blog while searching for some information, while this is just my experience, I hope it gives you a sense of what to expect. Reading other moms' experiences certainly helped for me)

1am: tummy ache, and toilet rush..

2am: more tummy ache, and toilet rush.. messy big business (too much details!)

3am: more and more tummy ache, and toilet rush.. I felt like crap, literally

Couldn't go to sleep, I was having on-off diarrhoea for the past few days.

4am: After going countless of times to the toilet not knowing if I am going into true or false labour, I got a pretty heavy bloody show (sorry if this is too much detail), and felt too much pain, even though the contractions were strong but still not very regular.

5am: I couldn't care to wait much longer, and with much hope that this was it, I dragged Papa Lamb (who still denies going back to sleep) and quickly rushed to Mount Alvernia to check-in.

8am: I got my epidural by a casually dressed uncle (he didn't instil much confidence in me, honestly, but he did it pretty professionally). I did my best to curl up into a ball during the administration of the epidural, and lucky for me, it wasn't very painful, probably cos I was 'high' on laughing gas (I breathed in so much I was dizzy).

Past noon: the nurse asked me to start pushing. Since pain is a no-no for me, I asked for the epidural to be maintained at max and said I could still feel the pain (or at least that was what I told the nurse). So throughout the 30mins of pushing, I relied on the contraction monitor to tell me when to push ;)

Emo Lamb finally came to us after hours of labour... and he gave us quite a scare!

With each push, his heart rate dropped (we did not tell our parents about this until much later), and our gynae Dr Dolly Wee, very skilfully cut me below and sucked Emo Lamb right out! (at least this was how Papa Lamb described it since I couldn't see the episiotomy and vacuum assisted delivery). Turned out that Emo Lamb had his umbilical cord coiled around his neck twice! Luckily our doctor was experienced enough to deal with this smoothly - Thanks Dolly!

The next few steps went like a blur to me - I was dead tired and wanted to sleep. Fortunately I was awake enough to carry Emo Lamb for the very first time and touch him tenderly (he was like a delicate flower).

Papa Lamb's recollection of what happened next: after cutting the umbilical cord (for fathers-to-be, you can ask to do this too), the nurse quickly did all the standard checks and made sure Emo Lamb gave the loudest cry he could muster - this is probably the one time when crying is the best thing that can happen since it is also the first breath of life!

While I snoozed in the delivery ward for 2 hours, Emo Lamb kept his eyes opened and looked around curiously, giving Papa Lamb plenty of time for his first up close and personal photo shoot. I wasn't surprised, of course, since I was also known to sleep really little since young.

Welcome to this world, Emo Lamb!

#MamaLamb #EmoLamb #OurFamily