My Labor Pains

“The best way to understand your mother is have a child of your own.”

I hear that line from adults a couple of times before. Older people often say that our parents really had a hard time on us when were born for us to be stubborn. I wasn’t able to get the logic not until the time that I gave birth to my first child.

I waited for long months. Every month felt like it was a year. During my pregnancy, I had back pains, I was bored inside the house every day being alone, it felt so hot, my whole body was big, my feet was swollen, and every morning my feet cramped so painfully. Those hardships lasted for more than nine months because I was overdue. My pains were prolonged.

On the ninth month my doctor decided to induce me. I was happy that finally I could mark a dot on my calendar of the day my pains will end. Later did I know that it was the most painful day of my pregnancy. I came to the hospital the day I was ordered to. Many pregnant women were lined up the door of the doctor’s receiving room in the hospital for check up. I was sitting outside with my mom when a doctor and a nurse looked at me and I could tell from their face they understood why I’m there.

It was eight o’clock. After five minutes, the nurse told the doctor that the room and the apparatuses are ready. The doctor and nurse called me to the delivery room. The nurse helped me with the white gown and assisted me to lie in the bed where women deliver their baby. The doctor placed the medicine for inducing in me and ordered the nurse to confine me.

 Since there was no vacant private room, I was temporarily confined in the breastfeeding ward. I met two patients, one was in the case of ectopic pregnancy and the other, her baby is sick. I wasn’t bored because I had companions, but the room is too hot since the sun is directed to my bed. The ventilation is poor so I had to be patient. The mother of the sick baby told me how she gave birth. She labored for two days.

I was nervous because I didn’t know what I was going to feel. I didn’t know if I would be able to bear the pain of giving birth. Most stories of women giving birth are of pain. At one o’clock at noon, I started to feel my womb contract. It was not that painful but I felt uncomfortable. It’s like it’s a pain under my chest and at my back. As time goes on the contraction’s interval comes closer and closer, thus more painful at each time.

It was until I didn’t know if I could still bear the pain. It is like clusters and clusters of pain of menstrual period attacking your womb at the same time. I held the metal head board of my bed so tight hoping it would lessen the pain if I would exert effort, but it did nothing. I was so devastated by the pain I felt, I was so painful. I can’t think of a word terrible enough to picture what I felt at those moments.

I felt some kind of relief when I was transferred to a private room during my fourth hour of labor, however the pain is still there. My mother and her aunt didn’t know what to do but tell me encouraging words just so I could cope up with the pain. It was so painful that every time it struck I couldn’t move even my eyes, because it would let loose and I’d feel more pain. I would only hold tight to whatever is near my hand. It was late, but we all couldn’t sleep. Sometimes I would shout. I didn’t know if I could still bear the pain.

I was at my eighteenth hour of labor , I was transferred to the labor room right next to the delivery room. It’s horrible, feeling and everything. The room is cold, and there’s blood on my bed and floor, and my whole body could feel the pain. I was brought twice to the delivery room to check if it’s the baby’s time to come out. Every time the doctor would say “no,” it feels like I feel more pain. On my twenty-first hour of labor, I was brought to the delivery room to finally deliver my baby.

I asked the nurse to turn off the aircon because it was so cold. Extreme pain, I could feel. I didn’t have the strength to push my baby anymore because of my twenty one hours of labor. So, the doctor decided to forceps the baby. It was a hard time for me and all of us inside the delivery room. Until, I heard a baby cry.

It was my baby raised upside down. It was the best relief I’ve ever felt. I cried. It was worth all the pain. Now, in my hands, is the precious baby I have long been waiting for.