*pics of Muhammad Izz Yamin taken everyday throughout this 15 days prior to his ‘arrival’ on the 19/2/2010*
Where did I stop last time? Ok. Let see, at 10.15 pm, Thursday, 18/2/2010, the opening was already 4cm. At 11.30 pm, it has opened up to 6 cm, and by 12.30 am, Friday, 19/2/2010, wallaaa!!! We have reached the 1-0 number and the *uh-ah-uh-ah push-push-push it harder and hardest with all your mighty* time begin.
Every contraction that came throughout the almost 1-hour in-labor brings nightmare to me, up until today. I am not exaggerate but that was what labor experience is like to me. Seriously, I will cringe at the very thought of labor room, contraction and even the word PUSH.
Huaa!!!! Maybe this is due to the fact that everything came/happened too fast that my brain failed to digest the feeling or logical behind everything that has happened thus my emotion took control and obviously my reaction showed it all.
Though, it took me less 2 minutes to an hour to get Mr. Izz out into this world, but seriously, the ‘scar’ is too deep for me to ignore or even worse, forget.
But, hey! After a few days at home, when you finally set yourself calm, and your baby is ‘speaking’ in his/her sleep, little by little, you will realize that, the baby is worth every single pain you felt before.
Oh, almost forget. The labor experience, which is the main subject here.
I was pushes into the labor room around 11.30 pm, that very Thursday, 18/2/2010. At that time, the opening was 6 cm. Every minute that passed was something beyond what I have prepared myself for. The contraction pain was nothing like I have ever experience before, the pain that is. It is far beyond painful, I should tell, according to my experience. With every contraction, you will have this urge like you are about to give ‘the-poo-of the-year-feeling’. Macam nak buang air besar of the year, so huge that you feel like your intestine want to come out from your behind.
By 12.30 pm, the opening was already 10cm, and the ‘real-pain’ begins. Ok, you may wonder, if contraction is pain, why on earth that I describe the labor pain as ‘real-pain’. Let me explain, every pain that came together with this in-labor thingy is a package of its own. The contraction is pain No. 1, the pushing experience is pain No. 2, the episiotomy is so cruel that it stand on its own, the second pushing to get the ‘uri’ out is another type of pain, and the stitching I tell you, is so very painful that during the time the doctor was stitching ‘that area’, I cried. I didn’t cry throughout the whole journey except when I was being stitched.
My baby is small, he weighing at about 2.54kg at the time he was born. But to get him out of me, the doctor had to opt for episiotomy and vacuum method. Yes I admit, though I have pushed with all my mighty, my baby still didn’t want to come out that left the doctor with no option but to cut me and vacuum my baby out. And the ONE and ONLY MISTAKE that I did was, at the very last push, I had somehow lifted my ass up; the RULE NO. 1 and ONLY RULE- NEVER EVER LIFT YOUR BUTT UP THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS OR ELSE YOU WILL END UP TORING YOUR PRIVATE PART. And that leads to multiple tore. The episiotomy resulted in 5 stitches, and since I have broken the RULE NO. 1, I have successfully torn my private part into two different directions that require million stitches more. And the experience, the feeling, the pain when the doctor stitched me was so very very painful that I actually begged the doctor to stop stitching me. At that time, I regret not opting for caesarean birth; but later learnt that giving birth through caesarean method is far more painful in recovery when compared to normal birth.
I am not trying to scare anyone here. I am just sharing my experience and believe me, without doubt, the experiences of giving birth vary from one person with another. If you have a chance to watch one of the episode of ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ in which the eldest sister Kourtney was giving birth to her son, you will see that, unlike my so-called-horrifying experience, the you tube video of her giving birth will make you believe that giving birth is a piece of cake. Try search for the episode in the YouTube and you will understand why I said that.
Nevertheless, it was really an experience of the life time. It made you appreciate your mother more.
Oh, I haven’t told you the story of few days after delivery. The story of where I have to find an alternative to do my ‘business’ since I can’t barely sit let alone squat because of the thousand stitches and the story of ‘my confinement’ and how I have break the rules of confinement that resulted in possibility of re-stitching’ my va-jay-jay.
This I will tell you more when I have the ‘me’ time in between nursing and continually breastfeeding my hungry-all-the-time baby. Again, he, without fail, has amused me with his multi talent of multi tasking while sleeping. Gosh, that makes me love you even more darling. Furthermore I love my dear husband more and more everyday for all that he has done for me.
-Mak Izz-