On March 6, Little Bear's cough had almost cleared up, so she went back to school.
The next day I took Jasmine for her routine checkup, and Little Melon went to see an internist because she had been dizzy lately. Jasmine's appointment was quick and everything looked normal. The doctor could not find anything obviously wrong with Little Melon either; he thought it might be a problem with the part of the brain that controls balance. He gave her several boxes of medicine and said that if they did not help, she should have a brain CT. Jasmine went to work in the afternoon. Later I picked Little Bear up from school, and she played there for an hour. She had wet her pants at school again.
On March 8, Little Bear kept kicking off her blanket during the night, and I got up several times to cover her. In the morning her cough was worse again, she was sneezing, and her nose was stuffed up. She stayed home from school to rest, but the cough kept getting worse. In the afternoon I went to the corner shop. To save thirty fen on a shopping bag, I took two black garbage bags with me. I bought soy sauce, sesame oil, cornstarch, and a few other things. The bags were too weak. A few steps outside the shop, one tore, the bottle of sesame oil slid out, hit the ground, and broke. The smell was overwhelming. I watched thirty yuan disappear just like that.
On March 9, I was eating lunch in the cafeteria when Jasmine called. Her pants were wet, and she thought it might be amniotic fluid. I told her to watch it for a moment and quickly finished my food. She said the fluid kept leaking and she needed to get to the hospital. A colleague drove her to the hospital near our home. I happened to arrive at the entrance on my bike at the same time, then pushed the bike with her on it to the inpatient building.
In obstetrics, a nurse received us and arranged a bed. I had not expected it to be so easy. The news had been full of stories about beds being scarce in obstetrics departments after the second-child policy was relaxed, and I had been worried that when the time came there would be no bed. I went downstairs to pay, and the admission paperwork was done.
Another nurse examined Jasmine to see whether the amniotic fluid was cloudy. Then she was sent to the labor waiting room to lie down. From a little after one until two thirty, no doctor or nurse came to check on her. We went to the nurses' station several times; they said the doctor was in surgery, that we should wait, and that they had already noted her situation. Jasmine was anxious because the fluid kept leaking and she was afraid there would be too little left and the baby would be in danger.
Around three, a nurse gave us an ultrasound slip and told us to go for a scan. When the result came back, the doctor looked at it and said there was plenty of amniotic fluid, not to worry, and that the baby was not large, 2,450 grams. She listened to the fetal heart and said it was normal. She said they would evaluate first. Later she came over and told us Jasmine was already more than thirty-five weeks along, so there was no need to try to stop labor. But the baby's lungs were not mature yet, so they would give Jasmine injections to speed up alveolar development and observe for forty-eight hours. Then she asked us some basic questions and had me sign the consent form for a vaginal delivery and its risks.
Jasmine was still leaking fluid. When she mentioned it to the nurses who came by, they said, as if it were obvious, that of course fluid would leak after the waters broke. By bedtime the leaking had slowed. A nurse said it was because the contractions had stopped. Jasmine had irregular pain, but it did not last long. She was given several bottles of IV fluids from the afternoon into the evening.
At two thirty that afternoon, Little Melon took Little Bear to the outpatient clinic. The doctor prescribed medicine and told them to do a nebulizer treatment. The nebulizer was expensive, but it worked well; after it, Little Bear coughed much less.
On March 10, Jasmine's water had stopped leaking and her stomach hurt much less. After breakfast I left the labor room because male family members were not allowed during the 8 to 10 a.m. ward rounds. I went to the supermarket across the street and bought ribs and pork. Jasmine said she was starving and wanted to eat. At noon I went to her workplace and drove her car home. She was on several bottles of IV fluids, had her fetal heart checked about once an hour, and had an ECG. Her stomach did not hurt much. Little Bear had two more nebulizer treatments and her cough eased a good deal.
On March 11, a little after six in the morning, Jasmine woke me and said her stomach hurt badly. I hurried to call the nurse. The nurse told us to go to the labor room, checked how far her cervix had opened, and then, with a bad attitude, said nothing and told us to go back to the ward. After that Jasmine was in pain about every ten minutes. At seven I went to ask the nurse to check again. She was impatient and told us to go to the labor room. I said the fluid was leaking and asked whether she could check Jasmine in the ward. She immediately said no. Then an older nurse said something to her, and she grudgingly came with me. She checked and said it was still early, asking why we were so nervous. We asked whether the cervix had not opened at all. She said that was not it; it was the same as the first check. Each time Jasmine had pain, I noted the time on my phone. These were her pain times:
6:13, 6:23, 6:30, 6:39, 6:47, 6:55, 7:00, 7:03, 7:12, 7:20, 7:32, 7:39, 7:41, 7:43, 7:52, 7:57, 8:02, 8:09, 8:20, 8:22, 8:32, 8:37, 8:45, 9:02, 9:09, 9:22.
Around 9:20 the contractions became less frequent, with pain only every few hours. By two in the afternoon they were coming every fifteen minutes:
14:14, 14:32, 14:55, 15:19, 15:41, 16:04, 16:20, 16:33, 16:40, 17:03.
After dinner the pain became much less frequent. The number after the dash is how long it lasted:
20:56, 21:23, 21:44, 22:00, 22:12, 22:27-75′, 22:40-45′, 23:09-55′, 23:38-80′, 23:50, 00:26, 00:50, 01:12, 01:32.
At two in the morning on March 12, Jasmine woke me and said it hurt badly. She said the pain had started after midnight, but she had not woken me. The times and dilation were:
2:37, 2:49, 2:59-85′, 3:15, 3:25, 3:37-70′, 4:01-85′ (one finger), 4:40, 4:50, 5:01-52′, 5:08-74′, 5:19-100′, 5:31-75′, 5:48, 6:00 (two fingers), 6:14, 6:23, 6:34, 6:41, 6:48, 6:51, 6:58, 7:17 (a little more than two fingers), 7:28, 7:38, 7:42, 7:48, 7:59, 8:07, 8:20, 8:27 (a little more than two fingers), 8:33, 8:39, 8:46, 9:01, 9:14, 9:26, 9:32, around 10:00 (three fingers), 10:14, 10:26, 10:34, 10:45, 10:48, 11:04.
People online say that after three fingers things move quickly to ten, but Jasmine was slow. At 12:15 she was four fingers; at 12:35, five; at 14:56, seven. By after five in the afternoon, when the day-shift nurses were about to leave, she was still at seven. A new doctor and nurse came on. The doctor examined her and said there was too much stool in her bowels and it was hard and dry, blocking the baby. The baby could not come down. She told Jasmine to go to the toilet and pass stool.
Jasmine was already in terrible pain, and now she had to endure it and go to the toilet. Sitting on the toilet, she was afraid to push hard in case she pushed the baby out. She passed a lot of stool, and I did not dare let her keep going. I helped her back to bed and asked the doctor to check her cervix again. It was still seven fingers. The doctor said she needed to go again. We said she was afraid to push. The doctor told us to use a glycerin suppository. I went to the pharmacy and bought one. Not long after she used it, she passed a great deal of stool. When the doctor came to check, she sent Jasmine to the delivery room.
Jasmine went into the delivery room at 6:10. Then we realized the baby's clothes had not been brought over. I rushed home to get them, terrified that she would give birth while I was gone. I was back by 6:30. Jasmine had not delivered yet.
What followed was a nervous wait. By 7:30, the woman who had gone into the delivery room with Jasmine had already given birth. The doctor came over and said Jasmine still had not delivered and did not know how to push. She asked us to pass water in to her. I took Little Bear's straw cup. Little Bear saw it and refused to let me use it, insisting it was hers. I was so angry I could have jumped, and I really wanted to smack her. Seeing that I was angry, Little Bear hugged her straw cup and went home, leaving me and her grandmother waiting outside the delivery room.
At 8:07 a doctor came out and said both women had delivered, one boy and one girl; ours was the girl. About half an hour later, a nurse came out carrying the baby and waved me in. She told me that because the baby was premature, she had to go to the neonatal unit, to an incubator, for observation. I saw the vernix still on the baby's face and blood in her hair. She was so small and looked so pitiful. I agreed.
A little later Little Bear's maternal grandmother came, took the baby, and said we would talk about it when the mother came. So we carried the baby toward the obstetric ward. As soon as we reached the nurses' station, a nurse saw us and shouted that the baby was premature and could not be brought there; if anything happened, they would not take responsibility. She called loudly for a doctor. The doctor came and still told us to take the baby to the neonatal unit, saying they were responsible only for the mother, not the baby. If we insisted on bringing the baby over, we would have to sign something. So we had no choice but to take the baby to the neonatal unit, complete the admission paperwork, and pay a deposit of ten thousand yuan. Then we waited for Jasmine to come out.
Jasmine came out at 9:30. When I finally saw her, those two hours had felt like a century. Only after I saw her come out safely could I relax. I helped her lie down on the bed. I felt I had endless things to say but did not know where to begin. I was grateful to her from the bottom of my heart. She had never suffered such pain in her life. She had truly been through a great deal.