No magic formula!
Due to possible blue baby syndrome, I was determined to avoid the pethdine jab during this labour. It didn’t help anyway. Naively, I had thought that I could ask for the same sign from God to know when to go to the hospital. But like I had said before – there is no magic “formula” in getting our prayers answered.
Meconium?!
Yes, my waterbag did break but the contractions were only 10min apart and did not progress. Hmm…So should I go or not? To complicate matters, there was meconium in the waters passed.
According to what I have read, it may signal that baby is in distress. And yet there was an incredible peace about waiting it out. So I waited and waited. I walked, I squatted, I went on all-fours but the contractions remained at 7 – 10 min apart.
I decided to call a friend who was pro-natural birth. She said that I should go to the hospital “just in case”. Henson and I prayed, discussed, and decided that we should go to the hospital to just check the status of the baby.
Everyone was calm
Surprisingly, everyone at the hospital was very calm even when I told them that my baby had passed meconium. They did the usual exams and put the CTG monitor on to check the baby’s heartbeat.
My doctor came in and said that baby was fine but I had to stay in bed and be hooked up to the CTG. He said they would need to monitor the baby’s condition closely! That was a bummer because I dislike labouring on my back. Lying down on my back always hurts!
I had been all ready to argue with the doctor that I didn’t want to be induced if he had brought it up. But the doctor didn’t even bring it up at all. Later on, he would tell us that he HAD considered inducing me so that he could go and serve communion (this was a Sunday morning) at his church in peace! But he decided to let me labour naturally instead!
Pray!
But from the moment I had checked in (slightly before 10am) till 12 nn, I was still dilated at 4cm! Although the contractions were strong and consistent, the dilation just wasn’t progressing. So I prayed. Henson prayed.
Suddenly at 1:45pm I felt the urge to push. I pressed the button next to my bed. The midwife scuttles in to check and she yells “Call the doctor!’. Lol! She claimed I was 9cm but I was sure I was a 10! She said that I needed to wait for the doctor, so I took the offer of the gas mask to control the urge to push & to calm myself down.
Five pushes later – the baby came whooshing out! Drug free, pain free, Exhilarating!
And so I learnt – keep calm and everyone around you keeps calm. And…prayers don’t get answered based on some magic formula. I need to seek God each time for each birth.