A trip down memory lane

Twelve years ago, right about now I was going into labour with my firstborn.

I didn't know for sure it was a girl - but I really felt it was. I had spent weeks on bedrest nervously wondering if everything would be all right. My blood pressure was high and on doctor's orders I'd watched a lot of tv from my couch.

I was about a week overdue - every day past that due date was painfully long. I remember being so excited about meeting my child, wondering who I would be meeting and knowing but not really knowing how much my life would change. I worried about the birth - would I do it without pain medication, would my water break, would I know when to push?

I had no idea what was really in store for me.

I visited my doctor on Thursday and my blood pressure was very high. She decided to let me go home after roughing up my waters and she was sure she'd see me later that night in full labour. The next morning she phoned me at home. How was I feeling? Oh, there was some show and some tightenings and some backache. But no contractions? No labour??

She ordered me not to get off the couch except to pee and if I hadn't gone into labour by Monday, I'd be induced.

It was a cold, snowy day and my dh phoned into work proclaiming the baby was coming 'any time now' so he could not go to work. We spent the day lounging, napping and waiting for something to happen. But nothing did.

And around eight o'clock at night, he started getting busy. I asked him, innocently, what he was doing. Well, he had a hockey game to ref. Pardon me? Yes, that's right - a hockey game to ref. Oh - I see, he could call in to work and say he couldn't go but the hockey game was impossible to get out of.

I told him he wasn't going.

He said he was. He said he'd get fined if he didn't give enough notice.

I told him he wasn't going.

He got his shoes on.

I asked him - what happens if I go into labour?

He said - oh, just phone the rink. (This was before the days where everyone had a cell phone - in fact, they still rented out the baby beepers but we hadn't bothered to do that.) And, he left.

I was so angry. I stormed around the house and decided I'd wrap presents (all thoughts of bedrest were gone) and then I suddenly got very tired. I left the presents scattered about the living room floor and laid down on the couch. Two minutes after K stepped on the ice, I had my first contraction.

I tried calling the rink - but there was no answer so I took a bath, breathed through the contractions best I could but finally I could stand it no longer. It must have been very, very bad - because I called my mother.

I asked her - how do I know if I'm in labour? She chuckled a little and said - oh, you'll know. A few minutes later I called her back and said - I'm in labour. She told me she'd come and get me and bring me to the hospital.

I quickly packed a bag but before my mother could arrive, K walked into the house. I was bent over the couch in the middle of a painful contraction. He got giddy with excitement and asked me what was happening. Through gritted teeth, I told him to get me to the hospital.

The contractions came close together on the short ride to the hospital. The only way I could get comfortable was on my hands and knees. I even remember kneeling down on the sidewalk just outside the hospital. I growled at the nurses in emergency who asked about me. I stomped down to the nursing unit and they hustled me into a room.

Very quickly - everything changed.

My blood pressure was alarmingly high. I had protein in my urine. I vomitted. My doctor was in emergency at the time so she came down quickly. My reflexes were so hyperextended that when she checked them I kicked her into a wall. My eyelids were fluttering and in an effort to stop the seizure that was beginning, my doctor pushed magnesium sulfate into an IV. All the while I tried to just breath through my contractions. K held my hand and helped as much as he could. The magnesium sulfate made me flush and he gently dabbed at my forehead with a cool cloth. I barked at him to cover me in a wet blanket. He tried to give me ice chips. The doctor yelled at him not to give me anything in my mouth.

Within thirty minutes, I was put into an ambulance, my doctor riding along in case I seized on the way and my poor K was told not to try and follow us - we would be going very fast to the city.

K left right away and stopped for gas and arrived before us. He had me half checked into the registration when the doctor, doing a double take, walked past him while wheeling me in.

I laboured for the rest of the night and into the early morning. The well laid plans to try labouring in the shower, in the rocking chair or on a birthing ball were set aside - the medications to keep my blood pressure down made it impossible for me to even get out of bed. I spent my labour laying on my side, clinging to K and trying to sleep between contractions. Finally after an hour and a half of pushing, I, apparently - since I have no recollection of it - started begging for 'that suction machine' to 'get her the f out of me'...sigh - not too proud of that moment but I try not to beat myself up to much since I can't even remember it...

And then - into the world, with a lot of help from a doctor I'd never met and wouldn't know if he showed up on my doorstep today - arrived my first born baby girl, A.

She was pretty quiet from all the medication I'd had but she was able to stay with us. My blood pressure continued to be a problem and I was exhausted. Later that morning, K slipped out to buy her a dress and while he was gone, my blood pressure spiked again and they stopped all visitors and darkened the room and sedated me. When K arrived back, he was shaken to see what had happened.

I wasn't able to take care of A for a few days so K became her caregiver. He fed her a bottle in between our difficult attempts at breastfeeding. He changed her diapers and gaver her the first bath. He learned the best ways to burp her and how she liked to be held when she was upset. For a man who'd rarely held a baby before, he took to fatherhood naturally. Much more naturally than I took to motherhood in fact.

And a few days later when I could finally get out of bed and start taking care of my little girl - it was K who taught me everything I needed to know. I remember when we went home, he would watch me like a hawk and then take her from me when he thought I wasn't doing something right. I finally had to tell him to stop - that I might not do it the same way he did, but I would figure it out.

Now that she is turning twelve, I am coping quite well with the changes, with the way she is growing up, with letting her stretch her wings but my sweet husband, who could not put his baby girl down to sleep, is having a much harder time realizing that she is now growing up and away from him.

This incredible girl arrived in a flurry of drama and she continues living life with that same intensity today. Her life and mine both teetered dangerously close to the edge that night. If I hadn't gone in when I did, I could have seized at home alone. Even today - after all these years, I am sobered by that reality.

Obviously - there are things that A needs to do in this world. And I am here to guide her and encourage towards that. We have lessons to learn. Some, we'll learn together and others I will have to sit by and watch her learn.