On the Saturday when labor started, I woke to Shuyi still in bed but in obvious discomfort. Although sometimes this happens when the baby moved around a lot and put pressure on various internal organs, I did immediately suspect that perhaps labor was starting. She was 3 days overdue already (although the due date is pretty much meaningless). My suspicions increased when I noticed that Shuyi, who was facing away from me, seemed to look at the time on her alarm clock several times, perhaps timing her contractions. Around 6am, Shuyi got up to use the restroom. When she came back a few minutes later, she told me that labor had started. I was nervous, excited, and relieved at the same time.
It was also eerily similar to how we found Shuyi was pregnant. About 9 months before, she had woken up in the morning, went to the bathroom to take the test (apparently they are most accurate first thing in the morning), and had came out a few minutes later with a surprised and incredulous look on her face. This time, there was less surprise, but a whole lot more pain.
At first, the contractions were frequent (~ 6-10min) and fairly intense, but were also fairly short (< 30s). These lasted for a couple of hours through breakfast, so we were almost sure that Ruby would come out later that day. We notified my parents and our doula that early labor had started. During each contraction, Shuyi felt pain in her lower abdominal area as well as her lower back. One technique we had learned in our childbirth class was to apply "counterpressure" for backpain. Over the next 38 hours or so, I became the master of counterpressure. Basically, I just had to apply a lot of pressure on a spot on her lower back during all of her contractions.
Early labor is a little weird in that you are still at home and between contractions, it's like everything is normal. However, every few minutes, Shuyi would be huddled over in pain, leaning on whatever was closest, be it a desk, table, the kitchen counter, a dresser, or the bed. I would then immediate spring into action as counterpressure man. Now, this wasn't too hard if Shuyi leaned over in a position where I could just stand behind her, put my hand on her back and use my weight to apply pressure. However, this was not the case much of the time. Often I had to try pushing on her back from various awkward angles to the side or in front of her. My forearms, wrists, and hands were getting fairly tired after a while, but I wasn't exactly gonna whine or complain about it. I was just content that I hadn't been physically injured yet in an attempt for Shuyi to spread the pain around.
After the initial period of regular contractions, they became highly unpredictable, spaced anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes apart. However, the length and intensity of the contractions seemed to be steadily increasing. It had been drilled into us by many sources that we should delay going to the hospital as long as possible, until the contractions were at most 5 minutes apart and lasting for a minute each. During the rest of Saturday and Sunday morning, it seemed to like it would never reach that threshold. I had always imagined that early labor would start out with widely spaced, mild, and quick contractions, and that the frequency, intensity, and duration would all just slowly increase monotonically over time.
By Sunday morning, my parents had arrived and so Shuyi's audience was increasing in number. Stress can slow down labor so I had my parents take Shuyi's mom and go out somewhere so that Shuyi and I could be alone and she could be more relaxed in a bid to move labor along. By that time, I was prepared for the possibility that Ruby wouldn't emerge until Monday or even maybe even later. The frequency of contractions, even around 1pm Sunday, was still 20 to 30 minutes. But maybe getting everybody out of the house did the trick, as labor started progressing very quickly, almost too quickly. I remember from our class that although 5-1-1 was the rule, 4-1-2 would be been even better. I'm glad that we didn't wait that long because 2 hrs after the contractions reached 4 minutes apart, Shuyi was pretty much already fully dilated and pushing.
I called the doula after we got to the hospital to let her know of Shuyi's progress. After the slow progress of the previous day and a half, I think she might have been surprised that it was suddenly progressing so quickly. I think everyone was surprised. My parents had left the city to go have dinner with some old friends down in Sunnyvale.
When we got situated in our labor and delivery room, Shuyi's contractions were 3 minutes apart and lasting a minute or more. My counterpressure was having less and less of an effect on the total pain that Shuyi was experiencing. By the time that Shuyi got into the bathtub, we were both hoping that the doula would arrive soon and that maybe she would have some tricks up her sleeve. When the doula did arrive around 6pm, Shuyi was probably in transition already. Although Shuyi told me later that it hurt just as much after Patty (our doula) got there, she did manage to relieve some pain. Namely, the pain in my hands and arms as she was able to take over as the primary support person. She encouraged Shuyi to open her throat and just yell over the pain. (Tom Cruise would not have approved I'm sure.)
I took the opportunity when Patty arrived to take some pictures of the beautiful view form our labor and delivery room since it was clear now that we wouldn't be staying there for very long (they kick you out a couple of hours after childbirth into a postpartum room).
Once Shuyi got out of the tub, a doctor checked her cervix and announced that it was time to start pushing. Standing next to Shuyi to the left of her bed, I got what I would say was an optimal view of the delivery. I was able to see Ruby's head emerge but was spared much of the gorier details that I would have been privy to from the doctor's angle. All the blood and other bodily discharges was already traumatizing enough. I've known for a long time that I never had the intestinal fortitude to be a doctor of anything but philosophy.
After just a few minutes of pushing, it was time for my big moment, the cutting of the umbilical cord. I'd say that the consistency of it kinda reminded me of tough tofu skin. It's definitely easy to cut as long as it's clamped and some pressure is applied to stretch it out a bit. After that things are kinda just a blur. I was extremely happy and excited to finally meet the little person that was the occupant of Shuyi's tummy for 40 weeks. I must say that she's even cuter than I could have imagined, especially for a newborn. I also felt slight relief that the ultrasound technician was not wrong about the sex, as 95% of the baby stuff we had purchased was fully pink.
As frenzied and nerve-wracking and exciting as labor and delivery was, the real adventure of parenthood has just begun.
Many people have asked about the meaning of Ruby's Chinese name. It was not that easy to come to a concensus for this name, probably because too many people were involved in the decision making. Both sets of grandparents had their own lists of ideas and all of the great-grandparents, aunts, and uncles also threw in their own two cents. In the end, I made the executive decision. I tried to incorporate our parents' suggestions and our own wishes to have the name say something about who Ruby is.
