[Labour Day - A Divinely Guided Delivery, Part One]

Let's back track a few days so that I can boast about what a wonderful hubby I have. 

On the 20th of Dec (seems I can remember the dates clearly, too bad I just didn't have the time or right frame of mind to blog sooner), hubby sent me a message to say he would be back late from work.  I found this suspicious because he hadn't done it since I came here.  A couple of hours later he texted to say he was home and he would be sleeping in the next morning. I suppose his intention, or supposed intention, was to tell me either not to worry that he didn't answer his phone or not to disturb him (I hope it was the former lol).  I had not-so-secrretly been hoping that habibi would come earlier to ease the tension of an unpredictable impending day of Baby's arrival.  Even blatantly told him to surprise me by coming earlier, and provided an SIA officer's contact number to help him change his ticket.  However, since 23rd was fast approaching, I had mostly given up hope. If I could wait so many days, what would 2 days be right?

But alas, hubby had something up his sleeve.  While watching TV on the 21st, I was still thinking "if he doesn't come by 2pm then I guess I must've made the whole thing up in my mind". 2 o'clock came and went and there was no sign of him so I gave up hoping. I guess I had to wait for the 23rd afterall.  Suddenly at 2.30 there was a ring at the door and Sakura got up to answer the door. There was "no one" at the door so I went out to investigate the source of the door bell.  There he was - after looking far right - my mischievous hubby grinning away! He was here! 2 days early! What a great surprise it was!  He wasn't too pleased with my "What are you doing here?!" reaction, but nevertheless I hugged him really tight and welcomed him with open arms. I knew he had been up to something the day before!! Apparently my suspicions were right afterall. Trust a women's instinct eh? Keke.

Thanks to his early arrival, he was able to come for our last prenatal appointment.  Dr S could sense how relieved I was that habibi was here. She told Mr F "She was a nervous wreck when you were not around, now she's glowing." Hehehe. Well my love, now you know how important you are to me.

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So the labour story begins here. 

I was still feeling a bit jittery about the whole major operation thing. I had told Sakura to give me "tough love" as I headed off for the hospital that night.  Tough love because that way I wouldn't get too emo. Yes, I get emo-er when I get "soft love". But nevermind that.

We were given the option of coming in at 12am or 6am on the morning of 27 Dec since ours was the first op of the day (8.30am).  12am sounded like a better option so that we could settle in slowly and get used to the hospital environment.  So at about 11.30pm we said our prayers and goodbyes to my family and Mr F and I headed to the hospital to check in.  The next morning was going to be a big moment.

At around 4am after trying to catch some sleep (quite impossible with nurses coming in to check/do this and that), I felt like a stomach ache coming on.  Maybe I had eaten something wrong that day. Darn, what a time to have food poisoning, or so I thought.  The pain became quite regular, about 7 mins apart.  After awhile of tossing and turning, I decided to go to the loo to relieve myself then tried to get back to sleep.  The pains continued, 7 mins apart but lasting only a few seconds. This couldn't be labour I guess since the "contractions" only lasted a few seconds. Plus they came on suddenly and were already 5-7 mins apart, weren't they supposed to come more irregularly first?  About an hour of the same pain later, I decided to go to the toilet to relieve myself yet again.  This was when things got interesting because as I was cleaning up, there was a bloody show on the toilet paper (on hindsight, I'm quite amused I had the instinct to check before washing up straight away. And on hindsight, apparently that sharp pain I felt before leaving home was probably a sign of things to come, not just a backache).  I woke hubby up to tell him that I was in labour, then alerted a nurse who said she would monitor me. 

Monitor me she didn't (bleah) but the contractions continued and I was amused, irritated and amazed that Baby decided I should go into labour on the scheduled day itself. How accurate - on his EDD at that.  I took it that God was giving me a sign that we had chosen the right day to schedule the c-section. And apparently, even with the c-section, I was meant to have a taste of labour pains afterall; though I wasn't entirely amused by that (note by irritation). Talk about double whammy - contractions PLUS c-section!  I went through the contractions quite calmly thanks to my HB sessions, breathing through them as they came. Trust me, even with all that training, going through the surges were no walk in the park.  It did help though because I was calm and knew how to brace myself through the pain.  Since we hadn't forseen going into labour, Mr F hadn't learnt the ways to massage me from Sakura. Though from how I reacted when I asked him to put his hand on my tummy to soothe me (by being my "heat pack") during one surge, I think I would've been more irritated than calm if he had tried to massage me. Well, I guess G did say that different women react differently to touch when they are actually in labour. (Note: during class, the massages simply felt shiok...hehe.)

At about 7am I was almost ready for the op. Auntie had come some time before that to see how I was doing. She was a little annoyed that the nurse didn't monitor me afterall even though I was already in labour but she couldn't do anything since it wasn't her ward or domain.  Mama and Sakura arrived in time before I was due to go the the OT.  My OT gown was damn unglam, it was made for shorter people so when I wore it, it hardly covered anything.  Auntie was busy taking photos with her iPad even in my unglam state (exposed, during contractions and al) - I wonder if the whole thing was amusing to her lol.  The crazy attendant wanted me to walk down to the OT but I'm glad my mum insisted that they wheel me down instead otherwise the walk there would've been very slow and painful.  Auntie came again while we were in the pre-op room. Her presence was really reassuring and she seemed to be pretty popular around the hospital. 

Soon it was time to go in. I would see Mr F in the OT once I had been prepped up.......