Our Chinese Birthing Experience

I'm not sure how to begin, so I'll just begin with the morning of Friday the 13th. We dropped Ali off at a friend's apartment in our building around 8:00 am. They have a little girl who is 1 month younger than Ali and we play with them regularly so I thought she would be comfortable with them. It was so hard leaving her. I started crying before we even left our apartment and couldn't stop until we were in the taxi. It was a busy time of morning, plus a lot of students were trying to catch taxis to go to school so it took us about 10 minutes to get one.

We arrived at the hospital at 8:30 am and our doctor and nurse were waiting for us.

Here is our sweet nurse, Clean Chen. She was so perfect! I love her!

They gave me a Hello Kitty gown to change into. So Chinese, I love it!

This is the only picture we have of our doctor for now. She had to run to deliver another baby as soon as James was born.

So, here's the story. I will try not to add too many details.

The doctor broke my water sometime between 8:45 and 9:00 am. The nurse monitored my contractions for about an hour. At about 10 am she started me on pitocin. By 11 am I was uncomfortable enough to want an epidural. I didn't really know how quickly this was all going to happen so I planned on settling in for a few hours. The nurses were saying he would be here by lunch time but that seemed so unreal to me after waiting 19 hours to see Mary Alice. I thought he'd be born by 5 pm at the earliest. I got the epidural, but I'm not sure I got an epidural. I mean, I know what it was like last time, and it did not have the same effect. With Ali, I had to have Jimmy move my legs for me. This time only my left leg got slightly tingly for about 30 minutes. I didn't feel the contractions as much but I felt everything below my hipbones. By 11:30 I was dilated to a 7 and the nurse called Dr. Xu. Dr. Xu got to the hospital about 15 minutes later. And stuck her hand in to feel how things were going. It must have been good because she called out something in Chinese and the whole room turned into a circus. Equipment was being wheeled in, my doctor suited up, they pulled handles up from the sides of my bed and foot plate thingys from the end. They slipped each foot into a cloth that went up to my knees, stuck my legs on the foot plates, told me to hold the handles, hold my breath and push. I had what seemed like 10 people yelling commands at me in broken English and then the counting started- "ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR...." with high pitched, Chinese accents. I couldn't feel the contractions very well but I felt all the pressure! I was pushing and there was A LOT of pain! I kept pushing and I didn't know what was going on except that it hurt so bad and I couldn't do it anymore. It seemed crazy! I knew I needed to push, because no one could do it for me, but I couldn't talk myself into doing it anymore. The head was just stuck and wasn't coming out. It was burning so much and I didn't know what to do. I was asking the doctor what to do and asking her to please help me. They just kept yelling at me to hold my breath and push. I was at the end of my rope and I just screamed and pushed. I screamed because it hurt, and I thought I was going to die, and I felt helpless. I could feel a little release from the pain as his head came out, then I pushed again and the rest of his body came out. It was over! Relief doesn't describe how I felt!

My face looks worried in the picture below because I was. Those 20 minutes before he was born were so crazy and as soon as he was born they quickly asked/shouted if I wanted to hold him right away. I said yes and they plopped him onto my chest. He hadn't even started crying yet and I had no idea what was going on. One of the nurses was rubbing him but he still wasn't doing anything. I told the doctor that I couldn't tell if he was breathing and she waved her hand at me. I didn't know what that meant- I guess it was supposed to mean that he was fine. So the pediatrician took him and he started to cry. I was relieved and started trying to calm down and process what had just happened. If we were at home I think the doctor would have done a little snip and the baby would have been out 10 minutes earlier. At the time I would have loved the snip, but I only required 1 stitch and my recovery is going to be so much quicker because of it.
As I look back on it, it was a great experience. It was hard, but it all happened as it should and overall it was very good. We have our little James and we love everything about him!

Here is a collection of photos that we took in the hospital.
They full on bathe the babies here. In the states, at least in Houston, they don't get the babies all wet until the umbilical cord falls off so this was new for us. Note: James HATED his baths.

Some of the pediatricians and nurses. My favorite was the pediatrician on the far right. She was so cute and sweet.

I love this sweet daddy! The only thing better than seeing him with 1 child is seeing him with 2!

James' little tag that they put on his bassinet.

Besides me suffering in the bed, you can see some of the equipment. Looks the same as home.

Was there not enough table room or do they always prefer weighing the babies on the microwave? I guess I could have moved the water bottle.

Sweetness!

The first meal they brought me. This is "pizza". Crunchy crust with slices of cheese semi-melted on top. We ate the whole thing and it actually tasted good by the end. We must have been hungry.



It was a crazy whirlwind of a delivery but the hospital stay was very relaxing and peaceful. No one came in to bother us from the hours of 8 pm to 7 am. It was awesome and we got so much rest! I loved the nurses. They were helpful, but not overbearing. This really surprised us because we're used to being malled anytime our child/children are in the same location as a Chinese person. The bathroom was not super clean. I won't go into detail but there were traces of the last patient. The bed was the most comfortable thing I've slept in since we got here!

So that's that. We're home now, and it's all a memory.... and a beautiful, sleeping baby laying next to me.