On Sunday morning January 28, 2007, I interrupted Danny’s breakfast by telling him, “I think my water broke, but I’m not sure because I don’t feel any contractions.” I don’t think he took me seriously because a half hour later he was still taking his marry o’time eating and chatting with John. I then told Danny, “eh, I don’t mean to rush you, but I should probably get going to the hospital soon.” Danny finally got the idea and got ready to go.
We were so thankful it was a Sunday and John and Janna could watch Silas at home. We had been telling Silas for weeks now that when the baby comes, we’ll be going to the hospital and that he’ll have to stay with the Changs. So once the time came, he was totally cooperative and kissed us “good bye” as if we were just going out for a walk.
The first hour or so at the hospital I still didn’t feel any pain so I told the nurse that I would opt out of an epidural just as I did with Silas. However, the contractions soon intensified. I was only 4 cm dilated and the pain was already excruciating. I was surprised because with Silas the pain didn’t start feeling horrible until 7-8 cm. I thought, “Shoot, if I’m already in so much pain, how will I endure the rest of the delivery?” Danny urged me to get an epidural saying, “Anita, you did it once without. Give yourself a break!”
I agreed and called the nurse and told her I was in too much pain. The nurse responded, “You had your first one without an epidural. You can do it again la! I’ll give you a shot of …. (I don’t know what she gave me). It’s a muscle relaxer and will help you dilate faster. It will also take some of the edge off the pain.”
The shot felt like 100 fire ants biting me in one spot on my butt. The nurse said that it would take about 15 minutes until the pain started to decrease. Yeah right! I waited about 30 minutes until I freaked out, “Danny, it ain’t taking no edge off!” All it did was make me feel like I had one too many drinks the night before. So for the next 6 hours I endured an increasing amount of pain.
By about 5pm it was time to start pushing. I had my own personal cheerleading squad. There were about 5 burka wearing nurses shouting, “1, 2, 3 push la! You can do it la! Good job la!” During each contraction I shouted to these nurses, “Help me! Help me!” In between contractions I would pray, “God help me get through this!” Let’s just say, I wasn’t the calm zen master like I was with Silas.
After 20 minutes, Dr. Tang said that the baby’s heart rate plummeted and we needed to get the baby out right away. Danny was scared and thought they had to do an emergency C-section. Thankfully, with few strong contractions, power pushing, and high-pitched screams, Dr. Tang was able to pull the baby out with a vacuum. Cassia was out by 5:23pm! It turned out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. I was so relieved that she was out. More so, I was thankful that we were at a hospital that had with good facilities.
Unlike Silas’ delivery, I was able to forget about the pain pretty quickly. Danny, on the other hand, was traumatized for quite a while. He said, “I cannot watch you go through that again! I need some PTSD counseling.”
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hahah… I can totally picture Danny traumatized and thoroughly shaken after that. But man, it sounds horrible.
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