Tyghe went to work, totally prepared to leave his desk the moment my name flashed on his phone.
I took bus to the clinic. Dr. Heng examined me and said the gate was opened 1cm. She sent me to monitor TC’s heartbeat and contraction pain for half an hour and had me waiting for another hour or so for 2nd examination. I couldn’t wait for her as my sugar level was dropping low, I needed to munch on something, a cow maybe. When I was back after my quick bite, she said “It’s 2cm. We’re going to deliver you today dear. Please go to the hospital and I’ll see you there”. To her astonishment, I asked if I could return home to grab the hospital bag first. That was something very unusual for an Asian I guessed. Visiting ob on her delivery day unaccompanied and wasn’t freaking out at all. I was just waiting for her nod. I headed back to the Nest waiting for Tyghe.
It took less than 5mins on wheels to Parkway East Hospital. I got admitted at 12.30pm and weighed 59.9kg before getting in the delivery suite. That’s 12kg to lose.
It was the midwife and nurses that present the whole time, Ob only popped in at critical times, which were 2 in my case, 1 to break my waterbag and the other time to receive the baby and stitch me up.
I was still joking around with Tyghe and posed for some shots until an hour later when the first contraction pain kicked in. At first it felt like menses cramp, totally bearable. I thought to myself, people were all exaggerating about labour pain. But I soon realized they all had been true about it. I suffered what felt like the whole century but in the end my stubborn cervix only opened 4cm (I was admitted at 2cm). That was damn the most painful 2cm ever!
I was wired to a machine monitoring fetus’ heartbeat and contraction pain (the same thing I did this morning). Baby’s heartbeat was healthy but the contraction pain leveled up as time passed by. The nurse told Tyghe on average cervix opened at the rate of 1 cm per hour. We’d been here for 3 hrs and mine opened 2cm. Arggg, some decision needed to be made. Prior to admission, I had proudly turned down all suggestion to take epidural. True enough, I withstood the pain like a hero with laughing gas and whatever jab on the thigh to kill the pain. On level of 10, laughing gas would help to lower 1, while the jab perhaps helped with 2 to 3 levels down. That’s statistic. Laughing gas was fine to me but the jab was horrible. The pain didn’t go away, worse, it made me drowsy @___@. It was like you trying to fight a war when all your head just kept telling you to go to sleep. The contraction pain reading shot up to 137 which according to nurses, the norm was about 100. I didn’t recall any swearing and admired myself for not scolding my hubby like what all women did during labour, well, at least, in movies.
We did the math, still have 6cm to go and that means at least another 6 hrs of intensive pain. Worried the pain would leave me exhausted and no energy to push, after a moment of contemplating, we surrendered to epidural. Epidural came in customized dosage, ie. I could either choose max dose to totally ease the pain off, or leave a bit of pain to feel the contraction, that’d help to time the pushing later on, else, you entirely rely on the reading of contraction pain. There was still a little hero left in me so I chose then latter. After 5 mins or so, the pain went almost off. Epidural was worth its price (it’s $500 + $200 for doctor’s fee).
Nurse came to check my service and congratulated me, 9cm. I was like, WTF, you should have checked before epi !!! If I knew it was almost the finishing line, my hard earned $700 would be saved (play a bit of drama here :P). So now I entered the last phase of labour: Pushing. I was told by midwife that baby would press on my anus on his way out so I would feel like passing motion. I indeed felt exactly the urge to go to the loo when eating something wrong. But baby would come out by the other “gateway” so while feeling like sh*ting, I had to push like peeing. That’s totally a dilemma! See, you need to give all mamas credit for being smart. No stupid dude can sort out
The bristles of a pore brush is super duper fine that enable it to really dig and remove trapped dirt in your pores. If you google for pore brush, the first to appear on your screen (the result may vary from country to country as google has different sites for each country, mine is .sg) is this simple brush by Tosowoong. Many reviewers said it is amazingly soft and it does work. But along with the million soft bristles comes big drawback. It’s nearly impossible to dry out thanks to the dense, compacted bristles. This makes it less ideal for traveling despite the portable size and not really hygenic. Pricing is steep too. It’s $22.40 + $5.60 for shipping on 
For some reasons, I ended up with this motorized version of the pore brush by Tosowoong. There weren’t many reviews on this. I bought on impulse cos the cute shape. Luckily it doesn’t fail me. Heng ah!!!
Cuckoo cat 