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Gabrielle's Birth Story By Karen |
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Birth Stories -
Complicated Birth Stories
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Monday, 24 November 2008 08:46 |
When the home pregnancy kit tested positive that March afternoon, I was surprised, excited and couldn't believe what I saw! David, my hubby, almost broke down the toilet door just to come and see the testing stick for himself!! You see, David and I was just married for a year and although we were not on any birth control, we were not exactly working for a baby either. I guess the both of us just thought that we'll let nature takes its course but wasn't expecting it to get to work so soon.
Anyway, to confirm the pregnancy, I again went to another pharmacy to buy another brand of home pregnancy kit to do a re-test. The test still came out positive!! We were reeeeeeally excited then.
I made an appointment to see the gynae and he confirmed the pregnancy. After that life went on as usual although the little baby in me was never far from my thought every single minute of the day.
I went alone to the first few visits to the gynae and was thrilled to see the little foetus on the ultrasound. Then in my third month, David was able to go with me for the doctor's appointment. That day, he saw for the very first time, what was to be our child. Through the scan, we could tell that the baby had lifted one of her hands and had placed it very close to her ear. The gynae jokingly told my hubby that his child was saluting him knowing that it was the very first time she was meeting her dad!! David was really thrilled by that!
All the while, I had wanted a son because David is a good soccer player and I was sure that he would want a son that he could play soccer with, so initially I was pretty disappointed to find out in my sixth month that it was going to be a girl. But this soon changed when I finally got to see Gabrielle's face....
Gabrielle was born on the 29 November 1997, one and a half week earlier than her due date. I remembered waking up at about 2am on 29 November for my usual trip to the toilet and was surprised to see a little water trickling down my thigh when I stood up. I wasn't sure if that was my water bag breaking because I was expecting a bursting dam effect. So after I had gone to the toilet, I went back to sleep again. I woke up in the morning at 9am and when I got out of bed, more water flowed out. I got a little panicky then and decided to put a call to my gynae. He advised that I went in to see him immediately.
The gynae did an internal examination and found out that I was 2cm dilated and confirmed that the water bag had broke. He was sure that labour would start very shortly and told me to get myself admitted into the hospital right away. He also asked me if I could feel the contractions coming but I told him no. The nurse in the hospital asked if I needed a wheelchair to go over to the hospital, but since I was not in any form of pain, I turned down the offer and made my way to the hospital, which was just a block away.
I registered myself at the hospital and the nurse wheelchaired me into the labour ward. Even then, I still did not feel the pain. In fact, I was comfortable enough to remove my nail polish and cut my fingernails while waiting for delivery!! I was strapped to the monitor and was told that the baby heartbeat was strong and good. Then half an hour later, I was given the epidural (I had told my gynae way in advance that I had very low threshold for pain and would like to have the epidural as early into my labour as possible!) and after that, I felt nothing although the nurse told me that the contractions were coming 3-minutes apart then. In fact, you could say that I had not felt a single contraction during my whole labour process!!
After an hour of waiting, my gynae came to check on me and that was when he decided that I would need and emergency C-section. He told me that my baby was in distress and that her heartbeat dropped each time I had a contraction. (I guess he had always thought that mine would end up a C-section anyway, because according to him, Gabrielle was "sunny side up".)
I was pushed into the operating theatre and by 1.30pm, Gabrielle was born. She's the most beautiful baby girl I've ever seen and frankly now, I really don't mind if I'll never have a son!!
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Complicated Births 
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