Pregnancy, Labour and Birth

One notable difference between England and the Philippines was, not surprisingly, the lack of pre-natal classes. Fortunately, with my own experiences of two children in England, and the mine of information on the internet, we were able to get through the nine months with no difficulties.

As the birth of our new baby approached, though, a couple of differences were very apparent to me as a foreign resident. Firstly, as my wife was going through a false labour, with erratic contractions, neighbours and friends were anxious to get her to the clinic, and were showing signs of panic. I was monitoring closely, so my wife and I were as relaxed as we could be in the circumstances.

Later that day, my wife finally went into true labour, of that I was sure by about 7pm. Soon, there was a car outside the door and anxious friends saying “quick, we'll take you to the clinic.” I was touched by their concern, but tried to assure them the baby was not about to arrive. Labour for a first baby averages 12-14 hours for the first stage alone, followed by another one or two hours. The doctor had told us, as they would in England, not to arrive too early.

We did go to the clinic some 8 hours later, when contractions suddenly dropped from 8 to 5 minute intervals, but even then, the doctor was not over the moon about it. She said nothing to complain, she is a lovely lady, but I could see from her face she would have loved an uninterrupted night's sleep rather than be woken after 2.30am.