Ward 23, 4th Floor, RIPAS & 1st Stage Labour Room

This is the first class room we booked when I arrived RIPAS. I was unable to stay here until the baby was born all because this room is too far from the delivery room and they fear that in case of emergency I might accidentally deliver in the elevator! That was their most common answer when I asked if I could be put in the first class room so I could stay with Sam.

The thing is, when I arrived RIPAS they rolled me into labour room immediately and I was hooked up to monitors and kept on observation.

The room was tiny, like a little store room compared to the delivery suite in JPMC. But it had everything you needed. I remember lying on the bed over there thinking, paint the walls a nicer soothing colour and take down those posters that look like they've been there since 1980. Why does it all have to be 'educational' posters...why cant it be a nice painting of something. At least something to take the focus away from the pain..!!! Ani makin ku lihat gambar breastfeeding atu makin sakit pulang contractions ku!!

Anyway, there I was lying there thinking whether or not they'd let me go home because I've been in this situation before with Kasyfi. I had to spend almost 2 weeks in hospital...!! 2 weeks!!!

Doctors finally decided that I was slightly stable, I can be moved out of the labour room BUT I have to be wheeled in to '1st Stage Labour Room'.... I was like, '1st WHAT?!?!?! What in hell is a 1st stage labour room..?!?!?!' See, in JPMC there isn't any 1st stage anything. So I was blurr about the whole thing.

Not far from the labour room was the 1st Stage Labour room where they put all the women who are literally in their 1st stage of labour. There were about 10 beds in that section and few nurses monitoring all the patients.

That's when I realised, I'm not going home :( Have to stay in that place till further notice. And the worst thing was that Sam couldn't stay with me. We asked the nurses why husbands were not allowed in. It was because sometimes the labour rooms are all fully booked and so the women have to just give birth on the beds in the 1st stage labour room.OMG!!

They weren't kidding! I was there for about 5 days I think, or was it a week...and I 'heard' 5 deliveries goin' on right next to my bed separated by only a curtain!!

There was one time when there were two women hooked up to machines, one on my right and one on my left. Their baby heartbeats were loud on speaker and coincidentally beating at the same time. And so there I was in the middle actually feeling like I was in a nightmare!!!

The thing which I remember thinking for nearly all the deliveries that happened there was that how come all these women were so controlled...? They hardly screamed...hardly complained... One lady was about to yell when the midwife kind of told her to 'zip it'.. I thought, 'what a biatch!'

The first 2 deliveries were a bit weird to listen to but then after a while the following deliveries I was happily eating my dinner through the chaos and relaxed reading my book while the pushing was going on. I thought, oh just another delivery. Then the sound of the newborn crying comes and I stop what I'm doing briefly and think.."aaawwwwwww..." :) hahahha... weeeiirrrddd... I must have been slowly going insane and didn't even realise it then!

Not bad the first class rooms.... although those curtains were such an eyesore!! WHY?!?! Of all the curtains out there...?!?!