Adventures in Calgary

We seem to be in the clear finally with Jake. He is gaining weight like a champ. He was 11 lbs 10 oz at his last midwife appointment. I'm down to pumping only once a day so I can give him a bottle before bed. And on the eve of his 2 month birthday, Jake slept from 11 pm until 6 am the next morning. Life is getting better by the day. Now if we can just avoid H1N1 we'll be set. This week, we tackle the two month immunization.

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. We spent the morning trying to drive to an appointment with the breast feeding clinic in a city with apparently no slow plows. GRRRR. We ended up abandoning the mission and rescheduling. Tonight we had a candlelight dinner with our two kids. Not the most romantic anniversary ever but it was fun telling Molly about our wedding and trying to get her to understand the concept of an anniversary. She just really liked blowing out the candles.

It is also the 5 year anniversary of our move to Calgary. 5 years ago we were landing in just as much snow as we got today...and we were HORRIFIED!!! There is something very, very wrong when you're shoveling substantial amounts of snow in the middle of October.

Lastly, Jake was 6 weeks on Saturday...so supposedly we're over the hardest part of life with a new baby (if you don't count teething). Yay us on so many levels!

Jake started smiling last Friday and is doing it more consistently each day. Most of his smiles he saves for his big sister. He's also spending a lot more time awake and looking around. Feeding is also improving each day. He is 100% on breast milk now and only needing a bottle to finish his feeds about 50% of the time. Progress is good.

Friday was a great day. I felt rested and positive. I thought I may’ve felt my mucus plug pass but I wasn’t sure. I went to see Katie the acupuncturist for my first induction appointment. She was amazing. That evening we picked up Molly and went to Montana’s for dinner. All day Molly had been ‘talking’ to Jake. She was asking him if he was excited to come out and meet Valerie (her pre-school teacher) and other questions like that. She was giving him hugs and talking about how excited she was to meet him and be a big sister. After Molly went to bed, Noel and I had a nice relaxing evening. We made a plan to go to Cochrane for a picnic and a family swim the next day.

At about 2 a.m., I woke up and instantly felt a leak. I calmly told Noel that my water broke. Luckily I was prepared with layers of towels on the bed. But the small leak quickly turned into a mighty gush when I tried to get out of bed. Noel got moving pretty quick…cleaning up and making phone calls. He called Auntie Jessie, and all the people he needed to call for work. We had been told so many times that second babies come quick that I was half expecting to hiccup and have Jake arrive. But since my contractions were still pretty light, we both just went back to bed and tried to get some sleep. Jessie arrived around 3 am – just in case we needed her. But nothing really happened. I continued to have contractions regularly. We decided to send Molly to the zoo with Auntie Jess and Grandma Nancy. All along I’d thought I would want her to be here for Jake’s arrival, but now that I was actually in labour I knew I needed to be able to concentrate on the work ahead of me instead of worrying about Molly.

We had a nice relaxing family breakfast. Noel made us all pancakes. And we just visited and got Molly ready for her zoo adventure. I was so relieved she was cool with going. I don’t know what I would’ve done if she’d asked to stay home.

Once Molly left, Noel and I had nothing to do but wait. My contractions really weren’t progressing. We were playing scrabble, playing catch in the backyard, talking to neighbours. It just didn’t seem right. Where was my fast labour? Why didn’t we have a baby yet? So we called Mary (the midwife on call) and she said she’d come over to examine me. I was so relieved. I was secretly afraid she’d just leave us on our own until the baby was crowning.

When she arrived and examined me, she found I was dilated 4 cms. I nearly died when she said “but I can get you to 5 cms pretty quick” and started stretching me. AHHHHH. Not fun. But it was just when I needed to get things moving. Almost immediately my contractions started to intensify. Mary started to set up the pool and her tools in the basement while I got to work. First we walked outside. But I felt way too exposed. I just really wanted to be at home. We hung out and paced on the porch for a bit. But it was pretty hot. The rest of the labour is a bit of a blur. I used the exercise ball. Mary got me to walk up and down the stairs two at a time…and I really wanted to kill her for it. My hips had been so sore my entire pregnancy that I hadn’t walked or done anything physical in so long. Walking those stairs hurt so much. And it didn’t help that I kept having wicked strong contractions every time I hit the landing by the window. This was about the time Wendy arrived. I was pretty bitter about walking on the stairs but I was really, really happy that things were finally progressing. I still couldn’t understand why we didn’t have a baby yet. I kept apologizing to everyone for taking so long.

The contractions were much stronger now so I got into the tub. It felt SO GREAT and relaxing but man was it HOT. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hot in my life. I was sweating like a pig. I couldn’t stand to be touched because everyone else’s hands were too hot. Noel and Wendy kept me cool with ice cubes and cold cloths. Noel even made me a cold beard. I looked insane. An ice cloth on my head, and one on my chin laying in my insanely hot kid’s fish pool.

I think Mary realized that I wasn’t going to have the strength to push out Jake if I stayed in the pool. I was just too hot. So she got me to move to the inflatable bed. I didn’t think I’d make it when she said to move but with help from everyone I got there. They got me to lay on Noel and that’s when the real work started. I had no idea what I was in for. I hardly had to push with Molly at all before she fell out on the delivery table. I had to work every last inch of Jake into existence. Mary and Noel were incredible. They kept me focused and strong even when I didn’t believe I could do it. There were definitely many surreal moments where I felt like I was some sort of athlete with all these people cheering me on. And the bitter side of me wanted to kill them all. But really the encouragement kept me going. Mary held my shoulder at one point when I was on the verge of losing myself in the pain and she told me to stay ahead of it. And I knew I could. I knew they all believed in me. I knew it was up to me to bring Jake home.

I started talking to Jake as I pushed, getting him to help me bring him out. When his head came out I couldn’t understand why the rest of him didn’t just fall out like Molly had. But it turns out our inflatable bed was too firm (who’da thunk it?) and there was no where for him to go. All of a sudden Mary’s tone of voice changed completely. She went from being a supporter to being in complete charge – ordering me to roll over NOW. All I could think was you’ve got to be kidding but her tone was all business so I knew I didn’t have any choice. And part of me knew things would go every badly very quickly if I didn’t do exactly as she said. I had to make sure Jake was safe so I threw myself over Noel’s knee and onto all fours. Jake instantly started to slide out but he was coming out too fast so Mary and Wendy got me to slow down the pushing and help ease him into our family. What an incredibly feeling to experience every inch of his frame exiting my body. And what incredible relief when he was finally out. They put him on my chest and I couldn’t stop saying “thank god it’s over”. I was amazed by how not mis-shapen his head was. Wendy made a joke that “you could drive a truck through your pelvis”.

We were so relieved to be at home. I was so happy to have Noel behind me (literally).as we held Jake for the first time.

The best part of my day by far (although Noel getting ‘birth juice’ on his leg was right up there) was when Auntie Jessie brought Molly home and to meet Jake for the first time. It was so incredible. She was so happy. We told her that we had a surprise for her and when she saw Jake she said “Jake came early?”. We told her he came because he couldn’t wait to meet her and she said “I’m a big sister?”, “I’m big enough now?”. And she climbed up onto the bed and the love was overwhelming. Our family was complete. We had our Molly and Jake.