It's been almost 6 months and I've never blog about my experience of giving birth to Irfan.

As most of you know, I gave birth through C-Section. It all started with me taking 2 weeks leave from work to come back to Penang as we planned to give birth at one of the Maternity Hospital here. My EDD was on the 16th of March 2008 (Sunday), so we had 2 weeks of final checkups in Penang with Dr Rozit* before I was due to give birth.

On that Sunday upon waking up in the morning, my first thought was "OMG! I haven't felt any pain at all. camna ni???"..I was quite restless throughout the day as the doctor said that if nothing happened until the next day (which was Monday) I've got to be admitted to be induced. I so wanted it to come naturally, not wanting to be forced to give birth. However, the doc was quite strict and insisted that we came on Monday if nothing happens on Sunday.

So hubby took me for a walk at the Youth Park, sebabnya orang cakap jalan banyak lagi senang beranak kan. We walked from Youth Park until Waterfall and I really did enjoy our last moments together just as husband and wife, not yet parents.

Anyway, Monday came and I still didn't feel any contraction, nor was there any show to indicate I was to give birth any time soon. Mak (and MIL of coz) told us to wait and not go for induce yet as Mak said that she didn't gave birth to any of us until at least a week after her EDD(s). However since Dr Rozit* was a very strict doctor, we didn't dare defy her order lest something bad happen to the baby. Hubby did called the clinic and told the staff that we want to wait another day, and if still there's no signs of the baby coming out then we'd go on Tuesday. The doctor agreed, but not full-heartedly.

That Monday night we had a really nice dinner at Tari Cafe with mak, abah and the siblings. I ate all I felt like eating, but not too much as I didn't really had the appetite to. Maybe risau thinking of tomorrow.

Tuesday came, and still no sign of him coming out any time soon. So that morning hubby took leave and we went ahead as planned, to the hospital. I got admitted into the ward and waited for quite a while for them to start the procedure. Oh btw, we took a single room so hubby could be there with me throughout the whole ordeal, as I'm a very coward person and totally needed support from him to face the unknown.

So after about an hour of waiting, they finally gave me the induce tablet - they called it the vagin* tablet - and asked me to rest on the bed. That happened arond 10 in the morning and I waited for a long time but no pain came. Mak and abah came to send lunch and saw me still gelak2 and sitting happily on the bed watching TV. They went back and the nurse came to give me a second dose at around 5 in the evening.

From then on, the contraction came with the frequency of about 2-3 minutes per contraction. However, the earliest hour's contractions were very mild thus bearable to me (whose got an extremely low pain threshold). When my contractions were monitored through the CTG machine, the nurses kept on asking me why was I smiling even when the contraction reached it's peak reading. Well, I told them it was bearable. I thought that if that's how painful it'd get then I might be able to get through it breezily. Cewaahh...angan-angan betul...

The night came and my contraction became harder. Being manja, I was of course looking at hubby with tear-filled eyes and asked him to rub my back or do anything to ease the pain. Somehow that night was the longest night of my life as I was contracting every 2-3 minutes, but when the nurse checked I was only about 1+cm dillated.

I was sooo frustrated with my progress and kept on asking the nurse to check my opening, much to THEIR frustation. Hehehe...

That morning, I just couldn't take it anymore - thinking that I still have a loooooong way to go and no energy left as I didn't get any sleep at all the night before, I requested for pain control. I was only 2+ cm dillated at 8+ am and I WANTED MY SLEEP damm*t! (At that time, thinking over and over again that I shouldn't have went there to be induced, instead should've let nature work it ways).

At around 10ish in the morning, the doctor ordered that I be wheeled into the labour room so they could give me the pain control I requested (okay okay, I actually requested for an epidural). Afterbeing injected with the epi, I was laying back quite comfortably (the doc didn't give me the highest dosage as he said I still need to feel some contractions so that I'd have the urge to push the baby out later) before she poked my water bag. After that, I heard the midwife gasp*and the doc and midwife both spoke in their medical terms which I had no idea what it was all about* but still being contend with feeling less pain now, I just smiled at everyone in the room.

to be continued...