Delivery in China

Other than we had wireless internet in our rooms and signing away the placenta, what was it like having a baby born in a Chinese hospital? (Because it wasn't a "local" hospital, I can't answer that for sure, but there were a few differences than what I had experienced before!)

Rose the Midwife and Dr. Ferguson

It was a bright sunny day in Shanghai, with a high of 74 degrees! I am laying in the delivery room and thinking it is kind of warm, for those of you who know me especially when I am super prego, know that this could happen in a room with the temp at 65 degrees. But when Tim notices it, it is hot. So we ask them to turn off the heat and we are still warm. We ask to have the air conditioning turned on, impossible, all they have is heat! AHH! We open the window for some "fresh" Shanghai air and it seems to work for a bit because it was still decently early in the morning. As the day progresses, it got warmer and warmer....remember this for later!

We started the pitocin at 9:30 with me already dialated to a 3. The doctors and nurses are in and out checking on me. Pretty soon my nurse/midwife came into ask me if I was allergic to penicillin and I said no. Well they needed to do a quick test to make sure. She has this needle and says she is going to give me a quite poke and it may sting. LIAR! It hurt bad and the injection lasted like 15-30 seconds. I am still not allergic to penicillin.

About 1pm the doctor decides my contractions are getting stronger and will check me again. We are at a 5 and she said she will break my water. Hold that thought....lets get the epidural first.

The "anesthesiologist" comes from the local hospital and speaks limited English. She walks in and as my friend who just had a baby put it, you think this is a 50 year old lady janitor checking on your room when all of the sudden you figure out she is the one going to give this epidural! Anyways, no prep talk and no going over the possible side effects or talking about my pain level, she lays me down and tells me to hold still and 1 minute later she is done! I must say thanks to her, she did a FABULOUS job! The doctor came in and broke my water (after I had been properly sterilized....unable to go into detail on the blog) and I thought we would have another 3-4 hours to go. The temp in our room is quite warm at this point, but thankfully I had the numb legs that kept me a bit cooler!

My friend stopped by (we had talkede before hand because she had a two week check up with their new baby that day). We chat with her for 15 minutes before she had to go and then the doctor comes back to check me again. She says are you ready to push, you are complete! I wasn't expecting this so fast, but would happily take it! She leaves to go get ready and in come the troops. These young assistants speaking their Chinese, though they all mostly spoke excellent English, scurrying like little bugs getting ready for the delivery. They gave Tim his delivery attire to wear and he was ready. The doctor came back in and 2:27 we started pushing!


The best part about pushing was having 4 of the assistants all counting very loudly in the Chinese accented English to 10! We were just waiting for them to say Jia You, Jia You!!! (what they say when they are cheering!) And since the windows were open and we were only on the 3rd floor, Tim wonders what it sounded like to those on the ground below! It was entertaining in itself, but we only got to hear them do it 4 or 5 times before Ryann was born at 2:35 (8 minutes later!) Instead of Tim saying it is a girl, he looks at me and says we are 3 for 3!! And I knew it was a girl, of course, the midwife didn't get the clue and turns to me and says her parts are like yours momma. I turn back to look for Tim and he is gone.....

Going back to that really hot room, plus now with all the added people, the whole delivery thing, Tim cuts the cord and it squirts a little blood at him, and he has his plastic lined scrubs on with a long sleeve shirt and t-shirt was just a little too much! He is sitting down and now the assistants are scurrying to get him a drink of something cold before he passes out! Good thing that pushing only lasted minutes. ; )

Anyways, I have no complaints about the care I recieved. There were a few quirky things here and there, but we had a great doctor and are now blessed with this new sweet little girl!

But the best part about delivering in China is when we flipped her over to get a look at her back side, this is what we found........