It was the week before Christmas 2010 and I was 36 weeks pregnant with my second child and hoping to enjoy the last few weeks of my pregnancy. But when I went for a check-up, my gynecologist told me the baby was in an engaged position and that I was already dilated by 2cm. What’s more, I was even having minor contractions!
The gynecologist then told me that my baby could be born any time during that Christmas week…or even on Christmas day! Were we really going to have a Christmas baby? I waited the whole week, but continued to experience only minor contractions and there were no signs of labour. So I was admitted to hospital on Christmas eve.
Was Santa going to give us a baby for Christmas?
When a midwife checked, dilation was still at just 2cm. She said if there was no further progression, I would have to be induced. She also gave me an enema to clean my bowels. At 3am the next day, the midwife checked me again and because I hadn’t dilated any further, decided I would have to be induced.
Find out what happened on the next page!
But even after being induced my contractions were still minor. “What was going on?”, I wondered. Another nice midwife came to check on me and said “how come the tablet is still there?” (meaning the tablet that was supposed to induce labour). She then said “I’m stirring the tablet now, you will experience strong contraction after this.”
My contractions were really painful because the pain relief medication had been given too late…but I didn’t want to scream!
Half an hour later I was finally wheeled into the labour ward. My contractions were getting stronger but were still bearable, so I had my breakfast while patiently waiting for my gynecologist to arrive. By now, I was having contractions 5 minutes apart and was in pain.
My gynecologist arrived and she broke my waterbag and left the room again. Within half an hour, I felt like like pushing, but the midwife advised me not to and called my gynecologist back to the room. But I really needed to push, and push I did! I kept telling my husband and the midwife “he’s coming and coming very fast.” The labour pain by this time was really unbearable because the painkiller had been given to me too late.
We finally had our Christmas baby!
The gynecologist finally got there and told me “this boy is so anxious to see the world!” After just 5 pushes, my son Lucas was born at 9.56 am on Christmas day, and screamed as loud as he could to announce that he had arrived! He was the only baby who was born in that hospital on that very Christmas day.
My husband and I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present – Lucas was and will always be our little Santa boy!