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pregnancy

The somewhat kinky Pregnancy&Me webinar

The state of our public health education has taken a giant leap forward, as I have been told at the launch of Pregnancy&me’s new live webinar at the swanky Grand Hyatt yesterday. It has certainly come a long way from the days of having propaganda shoved down our throats like “SAY NO TO DRUGS” or “CASUAL SEX IS BAD” or “SMOKING WILL GIVE YOU TESTICULAR CANCER“. Ok, the details might be a little fuzzy to me right now, but I do remember seeing large posters along that vein adorning the walkways downtown.

But all hail the revolutionary new development called a webinar (web seminar, geddit?) where audiences can now interact with doctors and trained professionals live from the comfort of their own cozy little armchairs. It sounds like a dream, especially for mothers like me who, for all intents and purposes, are under house arrest. Venturing 10 meters from my front door sets off multiple alarms that will wake the neighborhood and cause dogs to howl. So I welcome the idea of webinars with milk-stained open arms.

The initiative smacks of ingenuity as it harnesses all the magic of the Internet. Video conferencing – check, live interaction – check, interconnectivity – check. The point is that a panel of doctors will conduct a web seminar on a preassigned time and date on the portal and members of the public can then log in to participate. The panel seems impressive enough, boasting names like AP Tan Kok Hian, Chairman of O&G at KK Hospital. (Seeing how they managed to deliver my baby after a grueling 27 hours via natural birth has filled me with all sorts of good feelings towards their O&G department) Also, they have a whole list of topics planned out for an entire year, covering a gamut of pregnancy-related issues.

I also liked the concept of a medical butler. Makes me feel all aristocrat, if you know what I mean. “Why, Jeeves, could you bring me a cup of tea, please?” Except my medical butler isn’t going to shine my shoes or serve me tea. Her job is to moderate the questions so that the doctors won’t have to be stumped by something like “my dog has three nipples, is that a sign of infertility?

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iMedical Butler: 'Hi mam would you like some placenta to go with your cord blood?'

All a step in the right direction.

But I’d be interested to see how this pans out in the coming year. I foresee teething problems aplenty.

1. Webinar Structure

Out of an hour-long session, 25 minutes are dedicated to a lecture-style presentation and only 15 minutes for questions and answers – which is really the highlight of the webinar. Now, if I wanted to listen to a lecture, I’d much sooner watch archives over youtube at my own convenience (like 3am where I’ve got an hour to burn while feeding the kid). If I have to have to log in at a specified time in the middle of the afternoon, I’d want to make it count.

2. Audience Participation

Singaporeans are notoriously passive. While most of us are happy to sit back and observe, few would want to venture out to bare the details of our personal lives over the net, especially those relating to STDs and former/current indiscretions. Which means we end up with questions like “Doctor, doctor, how do I get rid of the swelling in my ankles?” See, that’s why Google was invented. Every one of the top ten links related to swollen ankles will tell you to raise your feet at night. You don’t need a doctor to tell you that over a live chat. I want to know the fun stuff, like what are the top 10 sex positions to improve fertility.

3. Topical Treatment

There’s an inherent problem with assigning different topics every week. Say I develop a nasty case of gonorrhea sometime in the 25th week of my pregnancy. And say I have to wait 5 weeks for the topic of STDs and Pregnancy to come up on the webinar, only to have the doctor tell me something like “you should have consulted medical advice three weeks ago. Now it’s too late and irreparable damage has been done to your baby.” I knew I should have gone with Google. FML.

But I’m sure the good people over at Pregnancy&me will have all these minor kinks sorted out in no time.

pregnancy

24 Season 2: A very long engagement

After a 27 hour ordeal, it’s all finally over. And via natural birth too! I’ll describe the experience at length later, but here’s how it went.

12 July 2009, Sunday

10.00 – Admitted to the hospital for Induction, hooked up to the CTG machine to monitor the contractions and baby’s heartbeat.

12.00 – Prostin Inserted. Not fun at all.

14.00 – Irregular contractions. Brought up to the ward to rest. I was all like “if this is how contractions feel like, I don’t think I even need epidural. No sweat at all.” And then I spent the afternoon watching movies on my laptop.

18.00 – Hooked up to the CTG again. Contractions 7-8 minutes apart, but still irregular.

22.00 – Supposed to go for second round of Prosstin to increase contractions, but managed to escape since contractions are up to once in 3 minutes. Wheeled in to delivery suite.

22.30 – Abused by psycho nurse who came in to check my cervix (only 1 cm). I was absolutely livid with rage.

23.00 – Had to eat my words – in loads of pain. Injected with Pethidine (in my thigh) for pain relief.

13 July 2009, Monday

01.00 – Epidural inserted. HURTS LIKE HELL. Epidural sucks.

03.00 – Oxytocin injected to induce contractions again. Contractions still fluctuating between once every 5-8 minutes. By this time, I was kinda drifting in and out of sleep. Cervix still at 1 cm.

09.00 – Gynae dropped by for a consult. Cervix at 3 cm. He says it’s gonna be a long labor, as if it’s not been long enough. If there’s no sign of progress in 8 hours, I’ll have to go for another c-section.

12.00 – Somehow the epidural only got channeled to the right side, and my entire left side was in excruciating pain. Contractions coming hard and fast and I was all worked up screaming for pain relief. I seriously thought I was about to die. Literally.

12.15 – Hot, young anesthetist came with more epidural. Pity I didn’t notice because I was having a near-death experience. The husband says he’s hot, and that I wasn’t dying. But he obviously doesn’t know anything cos he wasn’t pushing a baby out of his bits.

12.30 – Cervix at 9 cm. All I could think about was that something feels like it’s dropping out and I need to take a massive crap.

13.30 – After a lot of pushing and shoving (and an episiotomy), Kirsten finally came out with a plop.

It was totally surreal. And kinda awesome.