These last weeks have been really stressful for Ploy and me.We had changed to another hospital - Samitivej - and a new doctor, who is all for natural birth.
However, Ploy's due date past by and the next day we had an appointment with the doctor. Suddenly she became panicked, telling us she wanted a C-section right that day. According to her the baby was "disproportionate" and deemed to big for Ploy to birth naturally.
We were surprised because until then she never indicated that this would become a problem.
We wanted to wait and ask for a second opinion. Then Ploy contacted another doctor, mr. Ekachai, who has written books about natural birth and home birth in Thailand.
We went to him - in the same hospital - and found him very understanding of our concerns.
He did another Ultrasound, where we found that the baby was in de good position but not engaged yet. That explained why Ploy was over her due date (which is almost considered "holy", but is still an estimate).
He also showed that the baby is large, 4+ kilos.....
Nevertheless, he said that a vaginal birth should be possible and we waited until Monday afternoon (19th) for labor to start by itself.
That didn't happen and as he advised not to go much longer than 41 weeks he "stripped the membrane" of Ploy's uterus which brought on the contractions right away!
That night Ploy's contractions became stronger and stronger and the next morning we went to the hospital around 9 o'clock to check into the Birth Unit at the hospital.
At this point we had given up hope for a Home Birth, as the intervention/induction required fetal heart monitoring.
Ploy had contractions every 4-5 minutes and they were strong, however at the end of the day, despite all tricks like nipple stimulation, walking, soft bouncing on the ball, the head of Thijs still didn't engage (floating) and the dilation got stuck at 2cm only. And at 21.00 hours the doctor saw on the heart monitor that Ploy's uterus was exhausted and advised to go on to the next stage: the C-section.....
We had both been working to avoid that but seeing that Ploy was very tired and would probably be completely exhausted after another night of labor without any indication that the head would engage, opening up the cervix, we decided to go ahead with it.
We still requested delayed cord clamping and cleaning of Thijs on her chest, with eye contact.
That was unconventional for the operating team but Dr. Ekachai discussed it and they agreed to do this! We were very relieved to hear that.
Here is the first moment Ploy en Thijs can see each other, with the operating team still working in the background.
After that they cleaned Thijs and I could be close to him all the time. Then I could hold my first son for the first time and be next to Ploy's head to show her.
Thijs is weighed at 4105 grams and 52 cm long. He is a BIG BOY!
Born on 20 July 2010, 22:28 hours. The Thai year is 2553.
That night it took about 2,5 hours for Ploy to recover before she could see Thijs. These were long hours but Thijs and I had some good conversations already and I think he really recognizes my voice already.
When Ploy came to the room - groggy from the morfine sedation - she was also very happy to feel him for the first time on her skin, on her breast.
