First-time mum describes agonising process of giving birth, now fully appreciates selflessness of all mothers, including her own

She recounted more than 10 hours of intense labour pain.

Mandy How | January 02, 2019, 09:13 PM

For those of you who are curious about the process of giving birth, or who just want to commiserate, first-time mum Jiamin Chon's experience will be a good read.

Her Facebook photo album, titled "Life of being a mum", was shared on December 28, 2018, and has since garnered more than 5,000 shares and 9,000 reactions.

Thought she had a high threshold for pain

Her post, which was written in Mandarin, starts by advising two groups of people not to read it: Those who have not given birth before, and those who are about to deliver.

Chon had always thought that she had a high threshold for pain -- it didn't hurt when she injured her nails, when she got a navel piercing, and when she got all sorts of injections.

Therefore, Chon underestimated the pain of delivering her child, and (mistakenly) assumed that she would undergo the process with ease.

She chronicled three days' worth of her experiences on the post, starting from Dec. 23, when she started to experience periodical pain (presumably from her contractions).

Dec. 23, 2018

Around 2am, Chon started experiencing abdominal pain at intervals, but there were no other signs of labour (e.g. bleeding or water breaking).

At 8.40am,  Chon started to bleed a little (as women do before labour, and is also known as the bloody show).

But her cervix had only dilated 1.5cm. The doctor also told Chon that the pain was not severe enough to start labour.

For those who are not familiar, the cervix is only considered fully dilated at 10cm.

She continued to experience periodic pain for the next two days.

Dec. 25, 2018

At 8pm, the pain became more severe and frequent, although Chon's water had yet to break.

It became unbearable at 11pm, to the extent that Chon had trouble walking. She was rushed to the hospital.

Dec. 26, 2018: Actual day

In the hospital, Chon's dilation remained at 1.5 - 2cm, and the nurse instructed her to sleep after an injection to nullify the pain.

Unfortunately, the pain killer didn't work.

Hence, Chon stayed awake and was in pain until 5am, whereupon the nurse on duty wheeled her to the delivery room.

At that point, Chon had only dilated 2cm -- the same width as the previous night.

Agonising dilation process

After 7am, Chon had finally dilated to 4cm, and the doctor told her that she will be able to deliver the baby on the same day.

Chon wrote that she was in so much pain she might as well throw herself against the wall and die.

At 9am, Chon dilated to 6cm, but was already half-unconscious from a few hours of laughing gas.

It was only at 1pm when she dilated further, which means she had endured another four hours of agonising pain.

"I really really really really really thought I was going to die in the delivery room," she recounts.

Refused to undergo caesarean

At 1.30pm, the doctor wanted to perform an injection that would force Chon's cervix to dilate the last 4cm. Upon hearing that, Chon was terrified and even asked the nurse if she could have something that would mitigate the pain.

However, the nurse advised her otherwise, and instead asked that she bore with the pain for the last phase of the dilation since she had endured for so many hours.

Chon added that the nurses were kind to her, and held her hand tightly as she screamed in pain.

When her husband asked if she would like a caesarean delivery, Chon refused, as she didn't want to "waste" enduring the past dozen hour of labour pains.

At 3+ pm, Chon finally delivered her baby. She was not sure how long the actual pushing took, but every second felt like a year.

When the baby was finally out, she shouted, "I finally gave birth!" and promptly fell asleep.

"Mothers are the most selfless"

At the end of the post, Chon thanked her mother and her husband for staying by her side and feeding her porridge while she was suffering from labour pains.

At one point, she even vomited.

After her experience, Chon concluded that mothers are the most selfless and noble people on earth, regardless of whether they delivered through caesarean or natural birth.

She also asks for men to cherish their wives and mothers, as no woman would want to experience such torturous pain.

As if that's not enough, the baby's family name has to take after the man, she adds in an jokingly angry tone.

Original post here:

Top image from Jiamin Chon/Facebook