Due to my lack of updates, I’m pretty sure all of you would have guessed by now that I’ve popped!!! Yes!! I’ve finally given birth to my little princess!!

It all started on Sunday evening, 11th November. Around 8ish, I thought I felt Braxton Hicks for the very first time, as I’ve been told they feel like period pain. It comes and goes every few hours and I thought nothing more about it. When it was around midnight, I noticed these Braxton Hicks were getting more frequent, kinda like 10-20 minutes apart from one another. Somehow I felt, this doesn’t seem like Braxon Hicks, they’re getting more frequent and regular?? So in order to calm myself down, I rang the hospital and discuss my situation with them.

I was told I’m having contractions??????????????????? But as they’re quite far apart, I didn’t have to go to the hospital immediately as I’m quite comfortable at home. Midwife asked me to take some panadeine or panadol, go back to sleep and get some rest.

Of course I couldn’t fall asleep!!! I was timing my contractions the whole entire night. When it was about 4ish in the morning, I woke my husband up and told him that the contractions are about 8 minutes apart now. We decided to get ready and go to the hospital as we do not want to get stuck in Monday morning traffic!! I went to take a shower, check my hospital bags and we left home at 5 am. Once I got in the car, I rang the hospital and told them, “I’m on my way!!”

I was actually getting excited while we’re on our way to the hospital. I was even surprised at myself that I wasn’t feeling scared or terrified at all. I couldn’t wait to see my little princess!!!!

By the time we reached the hospital, I was already 3-4 cm dilated and I knew then that it was really really happening . As my dilation progress was taking longer than expected, by around lunch time, the midwife had to perform the artificial rupture of membranes (ARM) aka ‘breaking the waters’ on me and I was also put on the pitocin drip as an intervention and to help speed things up a little bit.

Do note that all these while, I was still having a drug free labour and have been rather quiet, but things started to change when I was about 8 cm dilated a few hours later. As the contractions got more intense, the pain in my coxic was getting unbearable and I was offered the gas, just to make the pain slightly more bearable. However, I only managed to bear the pain until I was 9 cm dilated. By then, I was way too exhausted and tired from the long hours of labour because it was already 5 pm!!! My obstetrician insisted that I take the epidural and I agreed without hesitation because I knew I won’t have enough strength to push later.

Not long after I had the epidural, my legs were numb. I could no longer feel much pain but I do feel the pressure on my tummy each time I had a contraction. I think about an hour later, I was fully dilated and I was told to start pushing. I asked them how should I push?? Basically, it’s like as if you’re going to the toilet, doing a big poo!!!

About an hour later, they had to top up my epidural as I can feel the unbearable pain AGAIN. By then, my obstetrician suggested that she will be using vacuum extraction for the delivery of my little princess because I no longer had much energy left in my body to push any more.

At 7.37 pm on the 12th November 2012, our little princess, Sabina Le Xu was born. Please disregard the unflattering photo of myself. I did have a good excuse to look like that and I’d blame it on the 20 hour labour.

Once she was put on my chest for some skin to skin contact, I had already forgotten all the pain I had to endure just hours ago. Seeing her for the very first time has already put one big smile on both my husband and my face.

I’m very grateful and thankful that my husband was with me throughout the whole labour. Without his encouragement and support throughout the whole journey, I’ve no idea how I’d manage.

Here’s a photo of our little princess in her very first outfit