This post is second in the series on posts I have written on Simple Things I Learnt From My Delivery. Read the first post {here}.
Every woman goes through her fair share of ‘lessons learnt’ during her pregnancy and delivery. During the 38 weeks of being an expectant mother, I faced:
- Morning (read all day) sickness
- Lack of stamina and exercise due to this constant eckiness
- Miserably failing my glucose tests (to the extent I had monitor my sugar 6 times a day everyday)
- Eventually going for morning walks in the freezing cold (and nearly having my toes fall off due to the chill)
- Spotting and bleeding for no particular reason (my heart of course stopped each time this happened).
- Everything coupled with the usual backaches, heart burns & constant wanting to pee.
If my pregnancy was tough, the recovery, postpartum even tougher. The only thing that went smooth was the delivery itself, something which I had been dreading since the day I got pregnant.
I was induced on midnight of 15th Feb 2015, second capsule given at 3 AM, that when I started dilating. However my contractions were still weak and I remember telling my hubby “I don’t know if I’m getting gas or if is it the real deal”.
By 6 AM, when I got 3rd dose, contractions started coming hard this time. And while the nurses prepped me, the frequency and intensity amplified by ten times. I yelled Epidural around 8 AM and finally peace prevailed in my labor room. My doctor came to check me and said I wouldn’t deliver before the afternoon, so I cheekily asked for a snack as well as took a nap. Got a rude awakening by one of the nurses around 10 AM who said I was going into labor, I could feel a pressure as versus the previous pain. At 11:51 AM, with one massive push, I had my baby in my arms…just like that 🙂
So here are some of the things I tell my pregnant friends not to worry about in the Labor room.
1) The Machines:
From the minute you walk into the hospital, there will some gadget or the other that will be attached to you. Some as simple as the weight and BP machine, which you are already familiar with. And then there are those that you may have only seen in the movies or on some episode of the TV series ER. Don’t panic, these are constantly monitoring a) Your heart rate, b) Baby’s Heart rate, c) Contractions – frequency and intensity. These are not just hooked up to your body in your room, but also being monitored from the nurse’s station outside. A cool thing which I was not aware of, is that almost all these machines have volume control! Incase any of the constant beeping is troubling you, they CAN be hushed up.
2) Your Privacy:
Well, be prepared to have your modesty fly out of the window. Rest assured, everyone in that room has a ‘job’ to do, including YOU. Follow the instructions of your medical staff and just give in. Don’t sit and worry about who can see what. If anything bothers you, speak up.
3) Walk:
I took the wheelchair from my room to the labor room, made me feel like ‘the movies’. Realised it was a big mistake as I reached my destination. The head nurse bellowed at me “Are you sick? Why are you in a wheelchair? Walk!!”.
She also came back to shame me when I was yelling through the intense contractions, “Why are you lying down? Get up and walk around”. I can guarantee you, her pearls of wisdom made me bear the pain till the point that I could. Nothing feels better than walking and swaying and sometimes sitting on the exercise ball. So on the day, when the pain hits the roof, ask your attending nurse and walk.
4) Epidural:
If you are open to taking an epidural, please request for one when you think you can no longer bear the pain. For some the pain is quite manageable and they go medication free. Then there are people like me who yell their lungs out and ask for epidural shamelessly. This reminds me, its ‘ok’ to yell your lungs out.
5) Skin-On-Skin:
Regardless of the way you deliver i.e. normal or through a cesarean, make sure your baby is brought to you immediately for a skin-on-skin. Your newborn bonds through touch and smell, and her senses are tuned in to respond to your unique smell and the feel of your bare skin. This experience also helps your baby transition from the fetus to a newborn. Try your best to breastfeed at that point. Some benefits of breastfeeding and information on Colostrum can be found {here}
Stay tuned for my experiences post delivery 🙂
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