The 9 month "flu"

This adventure into parenthood was not an expected event for my fiancé and I. We had been living together for several years. “First came love” but we seemed to forget the right order to the “then comes marriage”… before coming to the “with a baby in a baby carriage.” We had recently relocated and I began a temporary job working at a rural hospital in our community. It was Christmas time and as many nurses do, I had picked up several double shifts in a row. Thinking I was run down I thought I had come down with a “stomach flu” that had been going around. My “illness” seemed to stay around for a bit longer though, like several weeks longer.  I just couldn’t kick it. My menstrual periods have always been random…ish. I just thought it was one of those times since I had been working so much and for such crazy long hours. A few days passed thinking there’s no way I could be pregnant. Another few days pass thinking “well it could be possible”. Then the day came where I’m thinking it’s very likely that I’m pregnant. We finally decided I should perhaps take a pregnancy test.  Yup, there was no way you could make that + look anything like a negative… so I called up my good friend who happens to be a midwife. I thought she could tell me that there are lots of false positives. Nope, apparently these pregnancy tests are made to detect pregnancy and they are good at it… who knew!

So as we were getting used to the idea of bringing a child into our lives all the horrible birth stories people love to tell and the not-so-desirable births I had witnessed from the hospitals were creeping into my mind. I decided to not let that be me and I began eating as healthy as I could, worked out within reason, and read as much as I could. I decided I wanted a natural birth with my good friend, the midwife, with me and midwives from my area to help me on my journey. My fiancé’s first thought with having midwives was we were going to be having our child in our backyard in the nearest pile of leaves as drums pound to the beat of the birth and all chanting, but I educated him on what midwives roles are and talked him into that being the best for our child.

Our pregnancy seemed so short since at our first ultrasound, dating the baby, was expected to be around 12 weeks ended up being 16 weeks! I was in shock. I wasn’t expecting full on baby on the screen, maybe a heartbeat… so needless to say we breezed right through the trimesters.

So the much anticipated due date came… and went… and went… 13days went by. We tried acupuncture, chiropractic, stretching, reflexology and a few false starts- this little one was not ready. My body was but baby… not yet.  I was terrified of getting induced, I had seen it before and it does not look like fun.  Baby was fine with 2 non stress tests showing no distress.  Finally they decided I should use a herbal induction recipe and 2 hour nap later we were on our way.

8 hours of labour, 4 of which was in a birthing pool at the hospital, encouragement from my man, knowledge of my midwives, sounds coming from my body that I can’t believe came from my mouth, and several positions later I began pushing. It was so casual, “if you feeling the urge to push try it out and if it feels good keep doing it.” 30 minutes later we had a baby girl right on time! What a blessing, 9lbs 1oz of pure perfection. I mean there were definitely intense moments and a burning ring of fire on imminent delivery, but all in all… I would do it again in a heartbeat.