Birth story...

Hi. I really wanna blog but I just cannot find the time to do so. My life is now pretty much occupied with more exciting stuff. Yup our little bundle of joy is finally here..! Have i told u its a girl? She was born on 8th February 2011 @ 9.45 pm. Induced at 38 weeks of pregnancy. Her name is HANA SOFEA. Hana means happiness,bliss. Or flower in Japanese and Sofea means pure or wisdom.

I think I better briefly blog down my labour story first of all, while Hana is asleep or before I start to forget it. As you know I went for induce labour. Although most birth begin naturally and it's usually best to let nature take its course, but sometimes the birth process may need a little help if the risks of prolonging your pregnancy are more serious than the risks of delivering your baby straight away. (source : i read somewhere about induce labour)

So in my case, since i had an IUD case during my first pregnancy, I was advised to be induced at 38 weeks. At the given date, 7th February 2011 we got to the hospital then went for the ward registration. Checked myself in, it felt more like I was going for a check in a hotel than going to pop out a baby into the world. I’ve been told by the doc that they will start the induction process the next morning. I was pretty relaxed and the waiting game began.

8th February 2011- exactly about 6.30 am, the doctor inserted a tablet, pessary or gel containing prostaglandin to help stimulate the uterine contractions. However I didnt feel any contractions for the next 6 hours and can happily eating and chatting with hubby and family in laws. In the meantime the nurse kept coming in to check on the baby's heart beat and my contraction on the CTG machine. The doc was pretty amazed I didnt feel any contractions yet and at 2 pm i was given the second prostaglandin. She even helped me opening the cervix to 2cm. The contractions started to build up a bit by 3pm but it was still bearable. The biggest mistake i’ve done is i drank the "air selusuh" that MIL gave too early and it made the contractions went stronger but not the opening of my cervix. Haha. U should drink it when u’re about to deliver. At this moment i tried to read every single doa that i had memorised while hubby recited Surah Yassin from his phone. We even walked around the ward to ease the pain.

The contractions grew stronger i couldn't even bother to eat my dinner. At about 7 pm, the doctor decided to break my waterbag to speed things up and i was then pushed to the labour room downstair. As I entered the labour room, I was again being monitored with the CTG thingy and everytime the contractions came i kept telling myself ‘its all in your mind’ though i knew it didn’t help at all.Hehe.The pain was unbearable! The midwife gave me the ethonox gas and showed me how to use it if I needed to. You're supposed to breathe in throughout the contractions. I tried to give it a go, but I found that it didn't really help, just made me feel high and dizzy and wanna puke. Hubby was there all the time, and to my surprise I threw up everytime the major contractions came while hubby hold the plastic bag and massaging my back. The doctor came in and checked my dilation progress. 5cm. ..I was only 5cm dilated! What???after all of that pain, only 5cm??? The doctor asked me to try pushing slowly, like practising pushing and said i was doing well. Then the midwife told hubby to take the air selusuh. Hubby went upstairs to get the "air selusuh" and after drinking the water, I felt the urge of pushing so bad. It was like a magic when the midwife said I am fully dilated and can push now.

I can remember i told hubby to just stay beside me and dont look down where I’m going to push the baby.haha. i still remember that he once said that he’s afraid of the big amount of blood. And the next thing I know, I was pushing and pushing and pushing... and then the baby's head popped out and i can hear her crying. It was the most beautiful moment..Alhamdulillah was all I could think as they placed Hana on me. I survived the normal labour without taking pethidine or epidural. ;) (give a pat on the tummy)

reciting Azan/Qamat to her ears...

1 day old Hana Sofea..

So that's it...that's "not so briefly" about Hana's birth story.. Now that I have my own mini family and all I can say thank u Allah for this gift and really glad He gives me a chance to experience this again in a truly different ambiance.