Where to start?

I guess from where I left off…seems to make sense.

DePhoMo and Dailies…went well for what?..3 days after I decided to participate in both. My mom came to visit. The weather here sucked. We were stuck inside and my mother thinks the internet is "stupid". She’s totally computer illiterate and doesn’t understand why people would "waste their time"on something so senseless. So, rather than have to explain myself and deal with the eye rolling and sighing I put it aside for the week she was visiting. I never got back into it.

That was early December. Christmas flew by – uneventful. Really boring actually. My first Christmas without any family. There were no presents and we went to Rob’s parents on Christmas day. I think I was in bed by 8:30 that night out of sheer boredom. It was hard being pregnant over the holidays since I really like my wine and other general tasty liquid cheer. New years eve… I can’t even remember what we did or where we were. That must have been as equally as exciting as Christmas. Oh, I lie…I remember – we went to Jayme’s. Boring.

I slept away most of January. There is nothing that comes to mind that is worth writing about. It was a long winter being away from work and feeling shitty 24/7 due to being pregnant. We did go to 6 weeks of pre-natal classes. I thought we might make some connections with couples expecting around the same time as us. No luck. It was a really quiet group of 25 couples and after each class Rob & I left feeling aggravated at the lack of participation from everyone in the class and we’re pretty sure no one liked us. You know…the fat and loud couple – bad combo.

My BFF came to visit the first weekend in February. We hadn’t spent more than a few hours together here and there in 10 years, so I was a little nervous to have her stay with us for 3 nights. When she arrived it was like no time had passed at all and we fell right back into how we were 10 years ago when we were inseparable. It was a fantastic weekend! We shopped like crazy (still paying the consequences for that though, literally), watched some movies, ate some good food and just caught up on each others lives. Kelly totally spoiled the baby and bought him tonnes of clothes and treated me to all kinds of meals out – she didn’t let me pay for anything which is kind of strange since she came to visit me – it seems to me it would have been more normal the other way around. I’m so greatful for her and the time we had together. The stuff she treated me to was just an added bonus. I love her so much!

The remainder of February was quiet except for medical stuff. I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes mid Feb which was really late in a pregnancy to even do anything about. My blood pressure started to climb in early Feb so there were more than the usual weekly visits to the doctor. I was there a couple of times a week, but wasn’t given any details of what Gestational Diabetes would result in after delivery. In hind sight I would have asked way more questions!

Oh! I guess one really exciting thing that happened to us in February is that Rob’s parents offered to buy us a house in Airdrie, but the catch was we needed to move before our due date in order to get the best deal on an interest rate and purchase price of a home. I wasn’t thrilled at the thought of packing up our place in Calgary, unpacking in Airdrie and making sure everything was set up for Baby’s arrival, all while 9 months pregnant. My other half assured me that he would look after everything – my only job was to make sure that baby didn’t arrive early. That would really throw a wrench in our moving plans.

The last Friday in February I went out for dinner with 2 girls from work. They had a big bag of presents for baby – lots of clothes, books and a stuffed animal. We had a great time visiting and catching up. Throughout dinner I was feeling really weird…like the baby had moved positions and I was feeling a little off. I didn’t really think too much of it – afterall I was still a month away from our due date.

The following Wednesday I cleaned and organized our place like a mad woman. I worked non stop from noon to 9pm. That amount of activity for me was unheard of since I stopped working in October. Rob asked me if I was nesting…I snarkily told him that was nonsense and "someone" had to get some shit done around home if we were going to move the next weekend (he hadn’t gotten anything ready at this point – 10 days until we were to move).

The next day – March 4, I had a check up with my delivery doctor. He’s a man of few words – the appointment went like this…
"How are you feeling"
"Any questions for me"
"Looks like you’re right on track" (for delivery March 22)

That night I was watching The Office – it was the episode where Pam and Jim have their baby. I was killing myself laughing – it was one of the most hilarious things I have seen on TV. I got up at one commercial break to make some toast and felt this odd gushing sensation "down there". I didn’t say anything to Rob right away…I honestly thought I had lost bladder control and had just peed myself. So I went to the washroom and I did pee, but when I got up again there was more gushing. Let me just note here that our pre-natal instructor told us that when water breaks, it never gushes like it does in the movies and it very rarely happens when you stand up (because baby typically moves over the hole and the fluid can’t escape then) Oh and she also told us, first babies NEVER arrive early. WRONG!

So around midnight, after I called Healthlink to confirm it was in fact my water breaking, Rob & I arrived at the hospital and went straight to labour and delivery. In triage they confirmed that it was Amniotic fluid I was leaking and they took my blood pressure which was quite high. Normally they would send the parents to be home for about 24 hours, but because my blood pressure was high, they wanted to induce me. We were advised that it could still be 12-24 hours before baby made an arrival, so once we were settled into a delivery room Rob napped and I stared out the window in shock that this was actually happening – 17 days early and 8 days before we were to move!

The nurses started my IV induction at 5:55am. By 8am I was feeling some pressure and discomfort but I didn’t say anything – I was still thinking that it would be hours before I would even feel anything let alone baby arriving. The nurses noticed I was shifting a lot and breathing quite heavily so they gave me some laughing gas to take the edge off. Yah…that stuff didn’t even touch the discomfort. I had my first honest to goodness contraction at 9:30am just as my nurses were going on their half an hour break. While they were gone the doctor came to see me and did an internal exam. We were expecting dilation of maybe 2-3cm at that point, so when she told us I was at 8cm, I just about fell off the bed in shock. About 5 minutes later the contractions became unbearable…there was no time for drugs – I was told to start pushing. My nurses got back from break and 10am and were floored that my labour was progressing so quickly.

During labour, I was THAT woman. The screaming and crying crazy woman. Yelling about the pain. Screaming that I couldn’t do it. It was excruciating. The nurses wer

e yelling at me to push and I was yelling back that I couldn’t – it hurt too much! I had 3 sets of 3 pushes and on the 4th set, push number one, baby’s head crowned…1 more push and our beautiful baby boy came flying out – it was a good thing there were 2 doctors there to catch him – he was airborn! Parker John Gerald arrived at 10:21am – just 51 minutes after my first contraction. Any woman with kids that I have told this to has been quite disgusted with me that I had less than an hour labour.

I have never been so overwhelmed with love as I was when they layed this little tiny being on my chest – all 6 lbs 2 oz of him! So tiny. I was told my baby would be huge due to the Gestational Diabetes, but they were all wrong. The best things really do come in small packages. I was quite worried while I was pregnant that I wouldn’t feel anything for the baby right away. Afterall – do you ever meet someone and fall in love within seconds of meeting – nope. But, I was wrong, so wrong. Ron & I both were so incredibly in love with this little man and he hadn’t even been on the outside for a minute yet. He was gorgeous too – even all gooey and sticky and stinky…gorgeous!