First time Dad Diary January 13, 2018

Friday afternoon, we were thinking how this little girl that is growing inside is not wanting to come out. It has been more than a week since the mucus plug have started to separate.

Mucus plug by the way is the stuff that stops bacteria or any foreign materials entering the babies womb.

On Saturday at work, exactly 11 AM, I checked my phone and I had 30 missed calls since 10:50 AM.
"Yen's water broke!"

I bolted out of work and drove straight to hospital. Told the boss I had to go home. He looked at me in disbelief, the thought of anyone going home at this busy time is absurd. I told him in broken English, my partner water break. He smiled, congratulated and wished me luck.

"Hopefully an easy labor", I shouted walking away.

Driving to the hospital, excitement, doubt, fear came to mind. Just the other day I told her that I was feeling like our baby is going to come out this week. I'd be extremely happy if she did but in the back of my mind there was doubt. Financially I wasn't really ready.................

"Quesera sera, whatever will be, will be, was my mindset."

The thought of finally seeing her put a smile on my worrisome face. Then I thought of how Yen is coping with the pain changed my face expression.

Arrived at the hospital around 11:45 AM, to my surprise and made me laugh quite a bit, my partner was relaxed and eating a sandwich. Apparently she is still in the stages of early labor.

At this point the labor contractions are quite mild. Time passes as we talk about our precious is finally going to meet us. We joke around, cried and laugh as we remember the things we went through. Some have it easy, we are the unlucky ones that really have to work hard to get what we want. With a bit of blessing and luck, we are here.

Then the contractions became a little less bearable. She turned to the laughing gas for some happy thoughts.

As the day passes by the harder it is for her to smile. The pain was becoming unbearable, laughing gas wasn't helping at this point. It is now 10 PM, eleven hours through her labor and she is now 5 cm dilated. The midwife was checking up on her every half hour because her contractions have been constant. Each contractions are 60-90 seconds at 4 minutes interval.

She was offered a shot of morphine to calm the pain. My eyes dimmed down, I wouldn't mind a bit of that right now, I said to myself. But I needed to be there wholly for her.

The midwife advises that it's better to take it now and calm her down while she is in the middle stage. It will take 4 hours for the morphine to subsided a bit and by then she would be ready.

It is now 11 PM and the midwife that was taking care of us had to go home. The night staff had come.

These midwives that took over was so lazy, uncaring, and had that condescending attitude. She walked like the boss, looking down on us. It is 12 PM, our nightmare had just started.