The Big Day – a Holiday

October 22, 2019, Tuesday, the day I gave birth to my precious daughter. I was 38 weeks 6 days pregnant. This day was also the Enthronement Ceremony of Japan’s new emperor, a special holiday in Japan.

Surprised

I never expected to give birth that day. I was caught off guard. My due date was the 30th of October and I kept telling my baby to come out on the 26th, Saturday (as if she would listen to me :-)), because my husband would be off work he would be there for me. I did not do any exercises to prepare me for delivery for I was waiting to hit 39 weeks. I had been reading articles and most articles said that babies delivered 39 to 40 weeks are much more healthier in later life than those delivered earlier (37-38 weeks 6 days). Indeed the doctor was right when he said nobody knows when the baby would come. I had been having pains and contractions the past few weeks. Braxton Hicks is what they call it. My belly bump would turn really hard like a solid ball. I remember the doctor said ( as what I understood with his gestures) during the childbirth seminar that during pre-labor, the belly bump would turn as hard as a wall.

The Visperas

The night of the 21st, I was not feeling good at all. I had a slight headache and I didn’t want to eat. I had no appetite. In the kitchen after dinner , seeing me tired and looking exhausted and in pain, my husband said that the day will be the following day, the 22nd, to which I disagreed. I didn’t even think it would be possible. I was confident that I will reach 39 weeks. Although the past days, the contraction was getting me. My back hurt and my tummy was hard at random times. I didn’t believe him at all because I didn’t feel that it would be really happening the following day.

At the bed when we were going to sleep, baby in my tummy was extra active. She was making my tummy wave. She moved up and down, right and left. I took a lot of videos using my phone and even my husband’s phone.

[wpvideo 24keycHo ][wpvideo eCPfn8EH ][wpvideo kwdghABS ][wpvideo eTOKlSjV ]

The Dawn

Around 2:30 in the morning, I woke up to pee, which I usually does. My back was still painful. After a few minutes the pain didn’t go away. It stayed. I went back to bed but then after a few minutes later I felt like I want to poop and I was back in the toilet again. I felt very uncomfortable with my tummy and my back. I really couldn’t sleep that morning. I was back-and-forth to the toilet and the bed. I pooped like four times. I was tossing left and right on the bed just to ease my feelings. My husband noticed me and he also couldn’t go back to sleep. I started counting the contractions and timing it using the app on my phone.

At the back of my head I thought this is still pre- labor. I will still reach that 39 weeks. Just one more day. Not that day since it was a holiday. I didn’t want to pay extra. And I didn’t want to pay extra for going outside of clinic hours. Lol! I thought I was still in control. But no, I wasn’t. My baby was.

The Bloody Show

Around five in the morning when I peed and wiped, I noticed there was bloody mucus in the tissue (sorry for TMI). That was the first time for me to see that in my entire pregnancy. That’s when I thought that it was it. It was that day we were waiting for.

The Call

Around six in the morning I called the clinic and told the nurse I was in pain. She asked me when it started, for how long the pain was, how many minutes will it take me to get to the clinic, and finally told me to first, just relax in the house.

Around seven in the morning I got a callback from the clinic and the nurse told me to come. So I changed clothes and my husband too and we went downstairs to get ready to go. I told my mama who was still sleeping in the Japanese room with my sister Lea that I was going to the hospital that morning. She was surprised because like me, she also never expected it to be that soon. That very day.

The Magic Oil

Before leaving to the clinic I went to pee again and there was more bloody show. Even more in quantity.

And before we forget (mama reminded me) to use the snake oil (lana sa bitin) to rub on my tummy. Well, my husband didn’t know about it (sorry babe ;-/) and I didn’t let him know because I didn’t want any discussions about superstitions and such. (In bisaya, walay mawala kung mutuo) LoL. You’ll lose nothing in believing.

Arrival at the Clinic

We got at the clinic at around 7:30 in the morning and since it’s out of office hours, I had to press the doorbell so the nurse who was on duty in the second floor would come down to open the door for us. She asked me if I could walk. Of course I could walk. The pain was not really that bad and it comes and goes. The nurse led us to the second floor towards our private room. We were at room 8, nearest to the lounge/eating room.

The Preparation

I was told to change clothes and put on the clinic-provided robe and waited for the nurse to come back. After settling in our room the nurse came back and told me to go with her in the Labor and Delivery Room (LDR) just a few meters away. There they cleaned me down, shaved clean and made me excrete whatever in my intestines, I mean large intestines. You know what I mean, right? And it was this time I learned the word kancho. 🙂

The road to 10 cm

After cleaning and preparation I was asked to just lay on the LDR bed. Then a nurse came and told me she’s going to check my cervical dilation. This is one of the many painful parts of labor. The nurse inserted I don’t know how many fingers in my vagina and God, it hurt! Really bad. She’s not just inserting but moving her fingers right left up and down. That’s what I felt.

The first check I was already 4 cm. And from time to time a nurse would come to me and check again. Imagine the pain every time they check me. It was a hard road I had to go through.

But I also had moments when there was nothing. No pain. I was just on the bed. Laying flat and talking to my husband who was with me all the time. I could even use my phone and was updating my family through Facebook messenger. My sister was surprised I was in labor and messaging them at the same time.

[wpvideo D5KZ6vJm ]

[wpvideo djNrpOsh ]

In between cervical dilation checking and rest were labor pains. I felt like my back was beaten by an angry ogre. Trying to be funny in the middle of pain, I kept saying “Babe, this is Breaking Back” not “Breaking Bad” the Netflix series.

The pain was unbearable, unexplainable, unimaginable. I can’t even remember now that I’m writing this. The nice thing was the older nurse told me that if there’s no pain there is no baby. That helped me a lot. Pain means baby. The more pain I feel, the closer I get to see baby.

When I was finally nine cm (that was around 11:30 to 12 noon), I couldn’t understand what I felt. It was like my back was torn into pieces. I wanted to poop so I kept telling the nurse let me go to the toilet. But they won’t let me. They said it’s the baby. They readied me for delivery – moved my bed to where I could bend my knees and open my legs wide. There was a handle on the sides where I was told to grab and pull. The nurse rehearsed me how to push. She said when I feel the pain, I have to take three deep breaths, hold the third and push for ten seconds.

Finally, the nurses called the doctor. I was so scared to see him because I knew he was going to cut me down there.

The Push

When the doctor was finally in front of my widely open diamond, I knew it was happening. This was the moment I have been imagining my entire pregnancy and even before that. I am going to deliver a baby!

I could feel that doctor touched me inside and boom! The water flowed! That was my water breaking. The doctor told me to look him in the eye and spit the baby into his face. I didn’t know if he was trying to be funny or what. I was just moaning in pain and catching my breath on the bed with my husband on my right and three nurses assisting the doctor. Sometimes the doctor would say something but I couldn’t understand because I waste consumed with the pain I felt. I had to ask my husband to translate what the doctor said.

I was instructed to push hard when I feel the pain but the problem was I had weak pains. I didn’t know when to push and how to push. The first time I push was not a push at all. The older nurse said that “She is not pushing. She is just holding her breath.” So the younger nurse told me that pushing is just like passing some hard stool. That was what my older sister and mother told me.

They could see through the monitor if my tummy was contracting and they would tell me that was the time to push. Minutes and minutes passed I only felt weak pain. I tried to push and push and practice pushing until it was just really painful I could hardly do it. At the back of my head I said I couldn’t do it anymore. I heard the doctor asked something from the nurse on his left to help the baby come out. And another nurse, the older one, pushed my tummy to help the baby out. Everyone was sweating. I was wondering if neither me or my baby would survive. And then I felt an extra strength. I’ve been through a lot to have this baby and I just had to do this miraculous push. This life-giving push. I wanted to see my baby. I just had to give my all. When I was pushing I could hear my husband said “She’s coming! She’s coming. I can see her. ” That is what really helped me to just keep on pushing even if I felt that my lungs and brain would explode any moment.

The Cry

After the hardest and longest push I did in my whole life, I felt something pass through the opening between my legs and I heard a baby cry. My baby was born. I was conscious but I couldn’t see her I only could see the doctor and the nurses doing something down there. One nurse reminded my husband that it’s time to take videos and pictures and so he hurried and went beside the doctor to take videos. After a few minutes I saw the nurse ,the younger one , took the baby to the table on my right. And I could see the baby crying. I was expecting for them to bring the baby to my chest but it didn’t happen. One nurse was doing something to the baby checking her throat and I don’t remember what else.

The Moment I Saw My Baby

I was still on the LDR bed with my legs still open. The doctor with three nurses cleaned my precious diamond. During that time, I was just looking at my baby. I was still in shock how could a baby that size came out of me, how could she fit inside of my tummy. I was amazed at the miracle of pregnancy and birth. Most women who give birth say they felt this happiness they can’t explain when they first saw their babies but for me, it was more of amazement and disbelief. I was proud and happy I did it.

The Stitch

I thought that after delivering the child, it was over. But no. I laid on the bed for more than an hour with the doctor and nurses “fixing” and “cleaning” my vagina. Childbirth is like a powerful tornado that damaged national roads and highways. When the doctor was stitching me down there, I just felt so exhausted the nurse thought I collapsed and unconscious. They called me by my surname “Mo-gan-san!”. Yes. Morgan becomes Mo-gan(モーガン) in Japanese. They kept telling me to stay awake. I was so pale and weak.

When I held my baby

After stitching the cut, they let me rest on the bed and they finally gave me the baby. She was so tiny and cute. I noticed her cute little nails. Her face was still kind of swollen from the amniotic fluid I guess. Here’s that moment:

[wpvideo JvT0aVAk ]

That moment it still did not sink in that I was a mother already. I was still shocked and amazed of what I’ve been through.

The After Effect

I felt hungry I wanted to eat. It was already past 2 pm. They brought inside my lunch in a tray and they helped me sit down on my bed. The moment I started eating, I felt dizzy. I could only had a spoon of rice and I was back on the bed. I felt terrible. I felt very cold that I was shivering. Very cold that my mouth would shiver. That was the coldest I felt in my entire life. They covered me with blankets and electric blanket. The one that heats up to keep me warm. They also turned on the heater. It was a terrible after effect.

The Visitors

Minutes later my family (mother and sisters) came to visit but sorry I was not the star. Lol. I just realized it’s all about the baby now. “Where’s the baby?” “I wanna see the baby.” “Oh, she’s so cute! What a darling” and I was on the bed laying still weak and pale. I told my husband that everyone wants to see the baby but not me. Maybe it was just my hormones lol. My mother was worried about me but my husband assured them he’s going to take care of me and I’ll be fine. The nurse let them hold the baby they took turns. They did not stay long since I needed to rest.

Back to my Private Room

After hours of resting in the LDR, they finally took me back to my room. They helped me get into the wheelchair coz I was still in pain. I couldn’t barely move my hips and my bum just felt heavy. I looked like I was left in the open during strong typhoon. That night I just rested. My husband also stayed with me. The clinic gave him an extra bed in the room.

Before we went to bed, my husband kept going back and forth to the viewing room. He kept watching the baby. That time, we were the only one in the clinic. He felt sorry for baby for being alone in that room.

The next morning – first breastfeeding

At 7:00 in the morning, they called me to go to the nurse station to nurse my baby for the first time. That time I was so excited. I wanted my husband to go with me and record everything but for the nurses did not let him in. No husbands are allowed in the breastfeeding room. :-/ So I just took our first breastfeeding selfie. Me and baby.

If you notice, there is something between baby and my breast. That is a nipple shield. That helps baby latch since she is still too small she doesn’t know how to latch properly. My nipple is on the smaller side too, it doesn’t help. At that moment, I started to feel I was really a mother. I was happy. Little did I know, it was just the start of another big challenge of motherhood, which I will share to you in the next article.