Labour Story

CW: potty words, child birth

Tomorrow is my son's first birthday. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by. It has been a doozy! Wonderful, emotional, exhausting, joyous. Really, there are not enough words to describe the complexity of the unconditional love and new-ness I've experienced this year.

Last year today, my labour started. I remember being out for a walk with Tundra (our dog) and thinking that I may have peed my pants a little...but I didn't think that I did, then realizing, my due date is in a couple days...maybe we should head home, just in case. As we walked across the parking lot of our apartment building, a neighbour started talking to me from her balcony, asking how I was feeling and if I thought the baby would be coming soon. I remember just brushing her off, saying something like, "Anytime now!" While int the back of my mind I thought...it might be today! 

We have a friend who, just a few weeks before, had an extremely quick labour and I was secretly expecting mine to be similar. I had done lots of walking throughout my entire pregnancy and felt strong...no problem right?! As I got back into our apartment I began to realize that yes, my water was breaking...slowly. In my appointment earlier in the week, the doctor said they thought it would still be a while, so I wasn't expecting to go before my due date (which was two days away). I immediately regretted not cleaning my bathroom earlier in the week which I had planned to do. I jumped into action, turning on the roomba, vacuuming the dog hair off the couch, shoving a baby gift in the closet in the baby's room, cleaning the washroom and then taking a shower. I prepared to call John at work. He is quite diligent about not looking at texts or answering the phone while in class, so I knew that I would need to call the school. I casually said to John that I thought that my water was breaking and that I would meet him at the hospital just to get checked out when he was finished the day (only half an hour left). Welp, he came right there. I'll never forget the feeling of relief I felt when I saw our blue van pulling into the parking lot of the hospital as I was coming up the road! This was about 3 on Thursday afternoon. We were at the hospital being monitored and checked out for a couple hours. The awesome nurses and incredible Dr. O at WMGH confirmed that I was in labour even though I couldn't yet feel any contractions. They told us to go home and we all agreed to meet back at 7 am or when the contractions got quite close and painful. 

We went home and tried tried triiiied to sleep but contractions started around 1am and worsened until we ended up heading into the hospital around 5am. The following hours were a bit of a blur. I remember moving around in the birthing suit; the bathtub, the toilet, the chair, the tub, the bed. Finally realized that the most comfortable place for me to hang out and endure the pain was the chair. I especially remember my lunch being in front of me, I had just had my first shot of morphine and I did a pattern of contraction, eat a couple bites, close my eyes and almost fall asleep, contraction, etc. It was such a strange time. It was painful in a way that I don't think I could have prepared for, a different kind of pain than I had experienced before. It came time to push at about 3:30 p.m. (freakin' finally). 

I will be honest, at this point, I was most worried about pooping on the table. Looking back now, I have no idea why that was such a concern for me. I think I was thinking of John mostly. I did not want him to see that! Also, we live in a small town and I was worried about the docs and nurses seeing as well, but come on, there was so many other things that they were seeing that day, I'm sure they wouldn't give a crap (pun intended). 

The pushing was not going well in any position. I was starting to get nervous. My water had broke more than 24 hours ago now and I was worried they were going to try to send me to Thunder Bay which would have caused major anxiety for me and John as well. It is not a push that you can practice either, so many different muscles that you don't know you had. And I truly was unprepared for the feeling of giving birth to Clark (which happened at 6:40 p.m., yay!). 

That is kind of how I would describe this year...so much I didn't know that I didn't know.  The first six weeks were full of these moments, and I thought I would get the hang of it enough to not be on Google every night trying to find the answers to the big and small questions I had. It hasn't changed that much, we are always learning new things as Clark grows. I'm so thankful for those that have given an encouraging remark or word of advice throughout the past year, and those that have simply asked, "How are you?" and listened to the honest answer, which seemed to change from day to day or even hour to hour. 

I can share the rest of the story of Clark's birth another time if you'd like to hear it but I'm going to leave this here for now. The labour part got overlooked in my memory this past year and I wanted to make sure it was down somewhere permanently...let's hope this will be.