Belabor Me

I now understand why they call it labor. Or why we use the phrase "labor pains" to refer to some difficulty encountered when trying out something new. 

Because it is indeed painful! 

We had been waiting and waiting weeks prior to Camille's due date.  Hoping that she would start her contractions and give birth before her due date.  But no, the baby wanted to come out in his own time.  Due date was April 6/7.  But he refused to budge.  We thought maybe he wanted to come out on April 9, the National Day of Valor or Araw ng Kagitingan.  Wala pa rin. Sinimulan na namin ang novena kay St. Therese of Lisieux.

Then on the evening of April 10, Camile went to the hospital to have herself checked for a suspected leak.  It turned out that while she was starting to have contractions, the main water bag was still intact and it was only the fore bag that had ruptured.  So we went home.  By 1130pm, the contractions started to become more intense.  Intervals of 7 minutes all the way up to the following day.  I was actually catching up on facebook between her contractions since I couldn't get any sleep anyway. 

We decided to go back to the hospital the following day before 9am.  Camille felt the pain.  When we got to the birthing room, the doctor said she was only at 2cm.  But she was in pain.  So we moved to a regular room and wait it out. 

It was time to apply all those techniques we learned in birthing class. Use a tennis ball to massage her lower back! Swing your hips as you're standing!  Sit on the birthing ball! Massage her back! Cleansing breath! Breathe! Focus on something other than your pain! Offer  your pain! We were fortunate to have 20 hours of doing that every 10 minutes. 

Camille couldn't eat. Camille couldn't drink. She felt nauseous.  She finally agreed to take Demerol by noontime but it didn't really help much.  Whenever she was hooked to fetal monitor for testing, her contraction intensity was off the chart despite the fact that she continued to be at just 2cm. 

This was all Camille's pain. And all I could do was just be there and do whatever she wanted me to do. 

By 6-630 pm, she progressed to 5cm and the doctor gave the go-ahead for epidural to relieve her of the pain. 

So the contractions, effacement, dilation continued to progress until 10cm at past 11.  It was time to push. Three times but it was not going to be possible.  The baby kept getting stuck and couldn't really go out. 

Dra Henson sadly advises us that she will have to do a CS.  I was just dumbfounded.  After 26 hours, Camille was not going to have a vaginal delivery.  She was going under the knife.  But  Camille just kept her cool and calmly said, "OK."

That moment was my most humbling moment.  I had a newfound respect for mothers. And particularly for my wife.  I never underestimated her resolve.  I had faith that God would pull us through.  But I never expected the calm and collected reply despite everything.  And I said to myself, I owe it to her to be even stronger.  I owe it to her to be even more present and supportive.  That is what gave me the strength to watch the operation. 

Oh and yeah, seeing my son being raised up and hearing his first cry was such a major bonus. 

You can come out now

We had a welcome arrival today.  The package from the US finally arrived! It contained baby stuff among other things. One particular item we were looking forward to having was the baby book.  And it's finally here! Of course, the HD media player the came with the package was something that got us excited as well.

We called the freight forwarder and we were informed that the stroller was also due to be delivered today! Yahoo! We're now almost complete! Baby na lang! Haha!


As Mom said, maybe Bogs is OC like his Owa.  He wants everything complete and ready before he comes out.


So the wait continues...

Pre-Bogs: Waiting, walking and "nesting"

It's been difficult to make plans the past couple of days because there's always that caveat: "unless i go into labor".  Holy week was restful and quiet precisely because we didn't want to make any plans or travel too far away from Makati.  I think all of us at home (Rey and I, Mom and Dad and Miggy) all wanted Bogs to be born during the Holy week since we had nothing to do otherwise.  After Miggy's graduation last March 26, we already gave Bogs the go signal to come out.  He had a couple of days to get out of being called "April Boy", but he happily passed the March 31 deadline.  We thought he might want to come out on April 1, with all the other April Fools, but he passed that day without a hitch, too.  April 2, 3 and 4 went by without any signs of labor as well.  We requested that since he wasn't coming out yet, he might as well skip April 5, as his Tita Corinne wasn't to keen on sharing her birthday, and we were also afraid he would be known as Baby Glo.  He gladly obliged though, and stayed in that day, too.  April 6 - maybe he wanted to share birthdays with Owa Guia?  I was so psyched to go into labor already, but still nothing.  

Yes this little boy seems to have asserted his "i will not be pushed around or pressured" personality and I have had no signs of labor at all.  Nevertheless, Rey and I (and some times with Miggy or the Martins), diligently walk around Bel-air each night hoping that this would induce my labor somehow.  I'd walk around for around 30 or so minutes each night - because that's all my swollen feet would allow me.  But Bogs doesn't seem affected by any of this activity and seems to still be very cozy in my belly.  Thus, I keep telling people, this baby has decided that he will come out on his own terms.  

During all this waiting, I try to keep myself busy and distract myself.  While waiting for D-day, all I've been doing is cleaning up my files on my hard drives, organizing pictures, files, emails; fixing my outstanding bills, issuing checks, filing my documents in our hanging file.   I've heard many stories about expectant mothers starting to "nest" as their delivery date approaches -- scrubbing bathroom floors, tidying up baby's things, decorating their rooms or nurseries, etc.  Everyone who knows me knows that my Mom's knack for being very organized, decorating, and tidying up places is not something I inherited from her.  Rather, I've inherited the Bautista ways where my things can be anywhere and everywhere, crumpled money bills are miraculously discovered in different handbags, and my idea of efficient packing involves throwing things in a suitcase and being able to close the zipper. I was therefore very curious whether I'd actually go through any sort of "nesting" instinct.  

While erasing some unnecessary files on my hard drive, Rey goes to me... "maybe that's just your way of nesting - you're e-nesting!"  Hahaha, we had a good laugh about this as it seemed like such a lame attempt to say that I had found my "nesting instinct".  But, hey, I guess we do have our own types of natural instincts.