Thoughts on 'tummy time'

"Mark my words, Mom and Dad. Someday you will pay dearly for this torture you call 'tummy time' "

Drowsy cuddles with Auntie Leigh

Your tiny ears, your tiny nose, your tiny fingers, your tiny toes...

 

I love seeing other people love you. 

Beatrices first easter part 3

Beatrice is one lucky girl. She has such a big family and they all love her so much.
We went to Grandma Pam's and Grandpa Bob's for a second Easter dinner (elastic waistbands required). And Grandma Pam baked a delicious Easter cake with bunnies on top. Shes really in to baking now as part of her new 'Grandma' role and its so sweet.

 

   

 

Grandma Pam gave Bea a stuffed bunny, Bea has since gotten extremely attached to it.







Im so glad I caught this introduction, I am sure there will be a lifelong relationship with that bunny.
   

 So there you have it! Beatrice's first Easter. Happy Easter Beatrice, my little lamb.

Beatrice's first easter, part 2

So I cant decide if I should continue to write this blog as a narrative or change it to more of a letter writing style (like 'dear Bea, today I changed your diaper'...etc). I guess it will just evolve on its own.

So I am quite late with this post. Mostly because we have been working on Beatrice's sleep. That's the thing about babies, their sleep patters impact everything. But some improvements have been made and lately I feel as though I have re-joined the land of the living.  Its amazing how much better you feel when you are sleeping longer than 2 hour stretches. Its a gloomy and overcast spring/summer day today. I love these days. Everything looks green and slightly tropical and the birds are chirping and later, a thunderstorm may happen.

Back to Easter.

After our Easter dinner we walked over to Dairy Queen with the kids and left Bea to hang out with her grandma L. I love taking pictures of my niece and nephews, they are just so much fun and their uninhibited personalities make for the best photographs. Adults would be so much better if we let loose more often, like kids do.

how cute is he?!

 
Tristan is so inquisitive, hes watching the coin dropper and you just know hes trying to figure it out. 

multitasking Would you believe there's a part 3? No wonder I'm so behind!

Beatrice's First Easter Part 1

She had her first Easter!
And there are so many photos to share. We went to Collingwood to see the cousins and Grandma L and Papa John.  Bea's cousins love her so much and its so wonderful to think about all the memories they will have as they get older. I know I always loved playing with my cousins and wished they lived closer, so the fact that these guys only live a drive away is a real blessing.
Of course the boys were their wacky selves, they had drawn with marker on their faces and partied with goldfish crackers.

 

 

Getting these three to get a photo together? Not easy. But I like that. :)

Part 2 to come, and it involves ice cream.

The day Beatrice said 'hello' to the world

It was February 7, 2014, my due date. I had woken up at 4 am with (what I thought was) false labor. Throughout my pregnancy I had experienced tons ( and I mean TONS) of false labor. I can recall the many times Scott and I started timing the contractions, sometimes they would be in a distinct pattern for an hour, and we would get really excited, only to find them tapering off and vanishing.

So on February 7 at 4am I woke up and figured they would ease up in a moment, the previous day I had visited the midwife and she had done a stretch and sweep to induce labor. However she also told me it was unlikely I would go into labour that week as my cervix was posterior and had not moved into place for birth.

So I laid in bed for awhile and eventually started timing the contractions (as I had done so many times before), and refused to let myself get excited. The contractions weren't coming in regular patterns but generally came every 10-20 minutes, after about an hour and a half of lying in bed I got up and got in the tub to try and get them to ease up. 

Scott was sleeping in the guest room, which had become a regular thing as I was so huge and uncomfortable and needed an entire queen sized bed to myself just to accomodate the massive bump I had acquired. I also spent my nights tossing and turning from the heavy weight of Beatrice or a little foot in my ribs or the insanely itchy PUPPP that had exploded all over my belly (typically something reserved for women carrying twins).  

After awhile, Scott woke up to get ready for work and came into the bathroom to shower, only to find me in the bathtub. I told him that I had been having contractions since 4am, and this was the longest they had ever lasted (by this time it was about 6:45). As each hour passed, we talked about whether or not Scott should go into work that day. As 9AM came and went, we decided that he should update his work on what may or may not be happening and let them know that he would work from home, at least for the first half of the day.

Although I had been awake since 4am, I was full of energy (I guess this would be referred to as 'nesting'). I bounced on my exercise ball, watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and cleaned the house, paying extra attention to the bathroom. It was a very cold but very sunny day and the sky was bright blue with a few puffy clouds here and there. By 10am we decided that it was likely that Scott would be staying home from work that day and we called the midwife to let her know about the contractions. She told us to wait until they were five minutes apart so we went for a walk around our neighborhood to try to speed things up.

The contractions were getting stronger over time, so occasionally we would stop and I would lean against Scott and grip him tight and make a low moaning noise. It made for some awkward moments, specifically on Baby Point road when other people out for a walk would say hello while I ignored them and just moaned. During the walk we got a phone call from the midwife office to schedule us for ultrasounds the following week at the hospital in case Bea was overdue. We found that funny and ironic. 

Once we got home the contractions were strong enough to take seriously, so we had some lunch (Kraft Dinner, I know, gross) and watched the winter Olympics. I texted Laura to tell her we were pretty sure I was in labor and she decided she wanted to leave work and be with us. 

When Laura arrived the contractions were getting stronger but Scott thought it was a good idea to go get groceries before it was too late. By this time someone constantly had to be pushing on my hips to keep me from feeling like my back and pelvis were going to explode. The contractions were intense but manageable and I was able to make jokes and laugh and talk between them. 

I can't remember when things started getting really bad, I think it was about 45 minutes after Scott left for the grocery store. The contractions were coming at 5 minutes (still irregular) by this time and I texted Scott and told him to call the midwife. 

Laura and I decided to try having me get in the bath to see if it made things better, we ran the bath only to find it was freezing cold! Somehow all the hot water got used up! We don't recall using a lot of hot water that day but Laura had to put pots on the stove to boil.

Before the water got a chance to heat up, Scott came home and told us it was time to go to the hospital. Around this time things were getting really blurry as they were getting more intense and I had been labouring for over 14 hours.

I remember throwing on some clothes and being in the front hallway and having the hallway lights on and leaning against the wall, moaning while Scott rushed to pack the car. The neighbours had family over and as Laura and I left the house the neighbour's adult son was on the stoop and tried to chat with me. 

Laura told him I was in labour, but that didn't make a difference. Dude had the gift of gab and felt like sharing with a woman moaning and leaning against the car. I remember him making small chat 'oh, so what hospital are you with?' and just thinking 'really?!' but knowing inside how funny this would be in hindsight. 

We got in the car and made our way to the hospital, being stuck sitting in the passenger seat was brutal as throughout my labour I was not able to sit down. There was something about the way my hips and back tensed up that made it impossible to do anything but stand on my toes against a wall. It was rush hour and it felt like such a long drive, specifically when we took parkside ave and were stuck for, what felt like, a half hour as we waited for a chance to turn left. By this point I was yelling and swearing a lot (that was to be the theme of my labour from that point on: swearing like a sailor)

We finally got to the hospital and I jumped out of the car and waddled as fast as I could towards labour and delivery. Laura came with me and Scott parked the car. 

Once inside I got another brutal contraction and was leaning against the wall when my midwife, Fariba, walked up to us and told us to go into our room. 'Maybe once shes done this contraction', said Laura. 

We got to the room and I was dilated to 7cm and kept asking for the hydrotherapy tub, writing this birth story at this point is difficult for me as it was blurry and unpleasant and I became difficult and was unhappy with my midwife and the student she brought and everything seemed to take forever.

Eventually we got to the tub, but that didn't go well, the tub was like a giant lazy boy and required me to be on my back, something I was not interested in doing. I am fairly sure I looked rather comical lying on my back in this weird tub thing and yelling about how much I hated it.

So that didn't work.

 I was 2 for 2 with not succeeding in the waterbirth category and we went back to the room where I hung out in the shower with the lights off. Scott had forgotten his swim trunks so he stayed in there with me in his boxers, he was likely freezing as he stood in the wet shower, but out of reach of the warm spray, such a champ. 

Lo and behold, eventually the hot water ran out! That's when things went from manageable to completely unmanageable. I had been on my feet at this point for 18 hours and was exhausted to say the least and the midwife had broken my water and student kept wanting to monitor Beatrice's heart rate which meant I had to stay by a monitor and couldn't be in the shower or leaning against a wall. The two items that were keeping me going were taken away and I couldn't handle it anymore. There was no pain management support for me anymore. I wasn't able to be in any position I wanted, the midwife was preoccupied with her student and paperwork and therefore wasn't giving me any help and I was too in labour to advocate for myself.

I broke down at this point and begged for an epidural, I believe it was around 10pm. My midwife told me it would take 10 minutes, that ten minutes turned into an hour and I am fairly sure I was a terror that whole hour. Lots of swearing and telling people off. Not my best moment. 

When the epidural did arrive there was a nurse who helped me and I was so grateful for her. In hindsight I realized I really needed someone to be assertive and direct me and control me. She came into the room and told me to stop swearing and sit still and held me down. I loved her for it. I loved her control of the situation and confidence and ability to hold me down when I was fairly frantic and lost as to what to do with myself. 

I was able to stay stone still and sit and get the epidural and I wonder if I had had a bossy or controlling midwife or doula, if I could have gotten through the labour without the epidural. 

Either way the epidural was great and gave me the rest I needed to recharge. The nurse told me to sleep but that was fairly impossible with all the monitors and noise, but Scott and Laura were able to get some rest, which they needed and deserved. 

Scott brought me some food, which I threw up immediately, all over myself. I kept being sick from that point on and because of the epidural I couldn't feel the food coming back up, and Beatrice's little foot was in my ribs, but other than that everything went great. 

Now that my pain was managed, my thoughts turned to Beatrice. I wondered if she was doing alright and I felt selfish for numbing my pain when nothing could be done for the certain discomfort she was feeling. Her heart rate was strong and regular and something told me she was ok, Beatrice is a strong girl. 

Soon morning came and the obstetrician came in to tell me they had to give me a little pitocin as my contractions weren't regular and I was still only dilated to 7 cm (they hadn't been regular throughout my whole labour). The put the pitocin in my IV and left me for another few hours to progress, I believe it may have been around 5 or 6 am when the I was told it was time to push. I couldn't believe it! It was so surreal, there was a flurry of activity, a mirror got wheeled into the room and there were tons of people all around. Bright lights came on and Laura and Scott each held a leg while I gave my first push. 

Beatrice, I wish I could go back in time and experience that hour again. It was incredible, but at the time I was so tired and in shock that I wasn't able to appreciate the beauty of every second. It was such a special hour, it was the hour that would bring you into this world. I found a strength I never knew existed and I pushed with every ounce of power I had. It was time for me to see you.

Daddy and Laura were so excited 'theres hair! she has hair!' they shouted as your head descended.

Man, pushing is hard work! For so long it feels like its not going anywhere, and then finally, you get this great sensation of the head making it over the speedbump of your pelvis and its just a matter of a few pushes. Unfortunately I was pushing so hard that my eyes were closed but Scott saw Beatrice's face first. Then one more push and they put her hot, wet body on my chest and I looked down and saw her tiny eyes blinking up at me.

I was in shock, I couldn't believe what had just happened and that she was here. I rubbed her back to get her to cry and breathe and I held her briefly before they took her away to measure her and weigh her and clean her up.



Hello Bea, It's Mama.