thats the name of my first baby delivery. isnt it lovely? she was a healthy 6 pounds 5 ounces, 57 cm in length and she came out after 6 hours of delivery, at 1.28 pm today. :P gosh i sound like some proud parent, but i was soo chuffed, and took a few photos with the gorgeous bub. (not posting because of privacy issues)

so heres my experience of the labor ward.
OMG. its a freaking battlefield, blood curdling screams ring out from every corner, grown women and lots of men shedding literally sweat blood and tears. Lots of tension, emotions, love. wow.
watching the women in labor really makes me think twice about actually having a baby. There's really no dignity to childbirth. you unknowingly, whilst pushing, pee and shit everywhere, its actually quite disgusting. you have strangers poking into your private areas, checking the dilation of the cervix and all that stuff, helping you to rupture your membrane (ie. breaking the water) plus its so wrenching when they literally scream until their veins pop out with each contraction. for the girls, imagine having the worst period pain contraction, multiply by 100, 4 times every 10 minutes. the stomach is absolutely rock hard from all the tension and contraction, your back hurts from the pushing, and you have to wait till your cervix (the exit point of the baby) dilates from say a 10 cent coin to grapefruit size. my poor patient had contractions for about 2 hours 15 min. thats murder i say.

and thats not the worst part. the real deal comes when the baby's head is right stuck at the cervix, then theres lots of tearing of the perineal muscles (muscles around the exit part) and the tear may even stretch to the anus. thats the real killer apparently. yikes i can just imagine.

but when the baby finally arrived, somehow all the effort is forgotten. i dont know, there just something so pure and innocent about the delivery of a baby, after all the hard work that its just a really emotional moment, seeing it in all its goo and muck, wriggling about. we all teared, except the pro midwife. and here's where nature works its wonders. when you put a baby on the mother to bond, it creates hormones in the mother such that she no longer feels pain from childbirth, at most a bit sore (as opposed to doing a C-section, she'd be in pain for about 2 weeks). incredible huh?

and my patient was really lovely. she was in such pain but still managed to crack jokes, mainly scolding her husband for getting her into this, next time he should be the one who labors haha. he copped alot of scoldings and punches from her hahaha. poor man, he had such a blur confused look on his face, i think he's never seen his wife scream like that before. but it was also a little disconcerting for me because she was my age too, yet she seemed so much older, so much more mature. and here she is delivering a baby, being a mother. wow.

so yups, thats my baby number 1! hope you guys had a great weekend too, cheerios!