Birth of Baby Zhixin

You are looking at Baby Zhixin (智信) only moments after being born.

The final month of my pregnancy was weeks of agony for us. My placenta had started to calcify and the doctor found that the baby was not growing. Very little nutrients was passing from me to the baby. We decided that an early birth was unavoidable but the doctor wanted to wait until the pregnancy is at least 38 weeks old to perform any induced birth since he had not detected any abnormality of the baby. Other than the very low weight gain, that is.

At 37 weeks, I displayed no symptoms.

July 6th, the doctor did a cervical sweep. At the same time we found out that I was already 2cm dilated-Good news. but my cervix was very unripe-Not so good news. Doctor decided to perform an induced birth on Wednesday (8th), Thursday the latest.

July 7th, I lose my mucous plug. But no contractions whatsoever. I packed my bags.

July 8th, I went for a ctg scan. Baby was doing great, but I had no contractions. The doctor decided to go ahead with the induction. I repacked my bags again. We had a nervous day. I checked into the hospital at 10 pm. A midwife started with medications to soften my cervix. At this point we were hoping to get the contractions to start on its own so that no additional medications would be necessary.

July 9th, The doctor had another delivery in another ward at about 3 am. He came to check on me and performed an ARM(artificial rupture of membrane) He felt at that point that everything was progressing smoothly. Strong contractions started at about 5am. 7-ish, I was feeling the urge to push but the doctor has not arrived yet. Midwife ask to “hold it”, which is rather ridiculous. Doctor arrived. He didn’t even get to change into scrubs this time. He was just wearing his regular tee-shirt :) He proceeded to give me an episiotomy while I told him that I was glad to see him there. (In any other circumstances THIS would be funny, okay?)

7.30am Baby ZhiXin arrived with just two pushes and a loud wail! He weighs in at 2.30kg, perfectly healthy. All our prayers were answered in that instant.

Joy. Miracle. Blessing. Words that felt so inadequate at describing my baby.