Happy 7 months Declan!

Can't believe the boy has been with us for 7 months now. What better time to revisit his birth story. I am still in awe of how this natural birth progressed and so happy to have this not-so-little package in our family (despite his inability to sleep through the night).

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I woke up on Thursday morning, January 5, 2006, at 6:30ish with minor contractions. I had been having contractions, on and off for weeks, so this type of activity certainly wasn’t an interesting event. We got Kate and Andrew up for the day and headed to daycare. I told a few people at daycare that I thought today was the day - interesting when you tell people that you are in early labour, they are always in amazement that you are ‘up and about’, in public during labour. I finished packing the hospital bag, phoned my mom who said she would switch her plane ticket to that day and also called my aunt who had volunteered to be our childcare provider to warn her of the ‘day’. By 2:00pm, I knew this was the real thing – yes, it did take me a few hours – I had expected these relatively painless contractions to space out and to stop again as they had in the past few weeks.

The timeline becomes fairly important at this point as I was a little tight on my planning, as it turns out. Jim left to pick up Kate and Andrew at daycare at about 2:35pm. I left it so late because I didn't want to interupt their nap at school. In hindsight, we were exceptionally lucky that it was still school break week as it typically takes more than one hour to make the roundtrip. My aunt was also phoned at about the same time.

Contractions did get progressively stronger while Jim was out. I busied myself making my mom’s bed – laying down on it when the contractions came and then getting back up to finish it up once they had passed. At 3pm, I paged the midwives who suggested I come to their office, which is very close to the hospital to be checked – I agreed that was fine.

Jim arrived home with the kids at 3:15pm. I called the midwives back saying that coming to their office wasn’t an option because I was in too much pain at that point. We left for the hospital. I was ‘coaching’ Jim on the way to the hospital on what was about to happen – encouraging him to tell me to relax when I seemed very uncomfortable and that I would cry if I was only 4cm but did suspect I was 6 cm. According to the parking ticket, we arrived at the hospital at 3:44pm.

I realized that I was truly in pain during the long walk to L&D – we couldn’t find a wheelchair so I was under my own power. We arrived on the maternity floor and I went to the nursing station and said I was a patient of the midwives and that they should have called to alert the nurses of my pending arrival. One of the nurses responded that they hadn’t received a call. At this point, I wasn't into her humour – I remember saying to them ‘Does it matter’ – as I went down to my hands and knees in their doorway – I was now truly in pain. They also asked whether this was my first child - when I said it was my third, I think their sense of urgency changed just a bit.

I was shown to the triage room where my midwives miracously appeared. I was checked and was told I was 8 cm with ‘waters bulging.’ Guess I was just a tad closer than I thought! I then was asked to make the most agonizing walk down to my L&D room. I remember half joking and definitely half complaining that they must have given me the furthest possible room from triage. My main midwife brought reality in pretty quickly with her calm comment – ‘if your water breaks, this baby is just going to fall out.’

Once in our room, I was so grateful to reach the bed. Jim went back to finish my registration and the midwives readied the room with the all the required gear. The urge to push hit almost immediately. I was scared mainly because I was only ‘8 cm’ a few minutes prior and was terrified to push in case it wasn’t time. The midwives – still readying gear – said to go ahead – I was absolutely blown away. This was my first natural delivery (epidurals previously) so I was uncertain how this whole 'pain' thing was going to play out. I was a flopping fish on the bed with no one beside me and they said push. The midwives then did page the nursing station to tell them to send Jim back because this baby was coming. My SIL, who worked at the hospital, even joined our little crowd.

I am certain I made a lot of noise – most of it completely involuntary as I would stop every now and again and tell my possibly terrified husband and sister-in-law, that really it wasn’t that bad – I just couldn’t get a groove with the contractions and pushing. I guess it didn’t really matter as within 13 minutes of arriving in my L&D room, Declan James made his entrance into our little world! I remember them putting him on my belly and I looked for the gender. I proclaimed loudly that we had a little Declan after all … then, he promptly peed on me (and hasn’t stopped since – what is it with boys!) Declan was a decent size - 8lbs. 1oz., with a typically large head (38 cm) and 52cm long - not quite my biggest.

I amazed the pain stopped and the rest of the process was smooth. Within two and a half hours, we were ready to leave the hospital (it took that long to get all the admitance paper work done!). Declan was packaged into the carseat and we made it home for dinner by 7:15pm. I passed on a glass of wine but did sit at the dining room table munching on leftover pasta sauce (tasty by the way) with my mom (who arrived from Western Canada a few minutes after our arrival home), Jim, my aunt and the two ‘big’ kids. I was in bed by 8:30pm with our new addition safely in his bassinet beside my bed.