Sunday, March 4 (continued)
At the delivery suite, the nurse cheerfully hooked me up to the fetal monitor for 20 minutes to check on the baby’s heartbeat and time my contractions. She also did a VE on me (!!!) and made the announcement that I was only about 2.5cm dilated. Shortly after, Dr Y popped in and told us our options were limited: I had to go on an antibiotics drip to prevent an infection since my water had been ruptured for almost 12 hours, and that I had to be hooked to Pitocin to augment the labour since my progress was so slow. The baby had to be delivered within 24 hours of the rupturing of the membranes.
I tried to bargain my way out of the Pitocin, knowing that it would come hand in hand with an epidural but he was adamant. And so Mr Thick and I were left to ourselves for the next hour before the drips were to be administered at midnight.
In a strange way, that one hour proved to be one of the best in my life. It was just me, Mr Thick and our unborn son between us as we hugged and swayed to the music that was playing in the background, which helped me through the surges. It was a special Labour Day playlist that I had put together and it had all the songs that we loved: U2, Travis, Coldplay etc. We were just two people who are deeply in love and contentedly anticipating the birth of our child.
Monday, March 5
All too soon, midnight came and the wonderful nurse came in to administer the antibiotics drip, and to take three vials of blood from me for the banking of the baby’s cord blood at Singapore Cord Blood Bank. She was gentle, warm and reassuring, and for the first time in my life, the IV needle didn’t hurt at all. I was put back onto the fetal monitor and the sound of my little nugget’s swooshing heartbeat filled the room.
But shortly after the IV drip started, the sound disappeared, to be replaced by the warning beeping of the machine. His heart rate had fallen out of the safe zone of 110 to 160 bpm to the 80s region.
I could sense the anxiety in the nurse’s eyes but she remained calm and reassured me that it could be the baby shifting around. She moved the paddle around my belly and finally located the heartbeat again. She apologetically performed another VE on me to ensure that it wasn’t a cord prolapse that had caused the drop in heart rate and thankfully, it wasn’t. Instead of starting the Pitocin drip, she decided to monitor the baby’s heart rate for a while before deciding if Dr Y needed to be informed of the situation. She also had me put on an oxygen mask, just in case my nugget was in distress and needed the extra oxygen.
We were left alone and not more than 10 minutes later, the warning beep sounded again. This time, the nurse was clearly worried as she made me lie on different angles while she tried to locate his heartbeat. It took a while and the tension grew thicker and thicker. What was happening to my little man?
Thankfully, the sound of his heartbeat came back again but we knew that it was getting serious. She did another VE (!!!!) and assured me that it wasn’t a cord problem, before leaving to call Dr Y. All I could do was to lie there on that awkward 45 degree angle on my right side with a drip on my left hand and an oxygen mask.
To be continued…
Yannisms 
Hugs. Plenty of hugs.
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