The past hours (days now I guess) have been some of the most intense, pain-ridden, terrifying, exhilarating, and life-changing of my existence. I have experienced emotions, sensations, decisions, and changes beyond anything I could have ever expected. It’s crazy. It’s amazing. It’s all a little ridiculous.

“The last days”
-         Last prenatal was on Wednesday where he checked me, informed me that I still wasn’t that far along, stripped my membranes, and told me he was taking off the following Tuesday. Went home, lost loads of/rest of  mucus plug, and from that point on had increasing Braxton Hicks until ‘D-Day’.
-         Friday= thought it ‘was time’. Contractions, loads of leaking, and sense of change. BUT…nothin’. Saturday the same. Sunday even more, with crazier contractions but by then figured I was just crazy and decided to ignore it all. BUT Sunday at 9:20pm…membranes busted open!!! Horray! I had decided to just chill with a novel and popcorn on the couch when ‘pop’, stuff started. It was hilarious J I ran into the kitchen, dropped my pants, and stood there with Jer while we watched a small lake leave me. Frankly, disgusting. Jer was a little shocked ;)

 “First 12 Hours”
With the membranes ruptured I was ECSTATIC! Finally, evidence! Finally, something was happening that showed I was crazy! I grabbed the phone and started calling ‘our list’ and proclaiming the fantastic news that within hours our son would arrive J Following the calls, I showered, got prettied up, updated Facebook and Xanga and all those necessities, zipped up my suitcase, and skipped away to the car to the wonderful world of labour. Cleary, I had no idea ;)

Public Health had asked us to come in to check on the health of the Baby and my progress and such so we got in there just before 11:00pm Sunday night. Heart rate was awesome, contractions were measuring on the monitor, and the nurses declared my belly to be quite adorable J I was allowed to head home and encouraged to sleep. So we did, or at least tried. Jer crashed fairly well, I caught about 2 hours between timing contractions and trying to decide if I should exericise to keep things moving or actually sleep. In hindsight, it might have been better to get really moving as laying down really slowed things and led to a longer journey.

Next morning we called the hospital again (after I went for a walk to get things going again) and they said we had to come in since we were nearing 12 hours of ruptured membranes. So in we went, ready to dive into a fast and easy labour and meet our son.

 “Half a day” (8:30am-8:30pm)

We arrived back at the hospital at about 8:30am Monday. Progress checked, 4 cm dilated, and we were declared to be ‘officially in labour’. Now, that was cool and all but I had been ‘labouring’ for half a day already. We settled into the Labour & Delivery room and started doing what we could to keep things going. We wandered the halls, jogged around the parking lot, did squats and bends and butt swinging. Turns out the initial membrane break was a ‘hindwater break’, which left more fluid at the front and a nice cushion between the head and cervix to keep things slow. Finally, around noon, Dr. H returned, busted the front-waters. (Note: WOW, did anyone realize just how much fluid is in there???  It is seriously incredible! So much water!).  Dr. wanted to start a drip to get things moving due to risk of infection, but my nurse was amazing and really stood up for my birth plan so he said we’d give it more time. Very cool.  Contractions and dilation did pick up and we settled into the L&D room. Lucky for us, no one else was labouring that day so we were able to really camp out. I dug into my labour bag and we got to work. Here are some great tools we used that I recommend:

-         Playlist (had a ‘quiet’ and ‘intense’ one on my MP3 player with headphones). Came in really handy for cm’s 5-8

-         Tennis balls for lower back massage during contractions

-         Lavender scented massage oil

-         A novel (for earlier contractions)

-         Fuzzy socks

-         Hard candies

-         Lip balm

-         Head bands and bobby pins

-         Swim top (for in the shower)

-         Snacks for Jeremy

(Having a labour bag packed separate from the hospital bag is handy. Everything is right there and if you find you need/want it you can have it. I randomly would say “ ‘item’…labour bag!” and Jer would get it for me. )

 SO. By now we were stuck in that room. Unfortunately, cell phones weren’t allowed and I didn’t really want Jer taking off to update people so my family was totally out of the loop. Huge apologies family! Sorry…. I can imagine that it was pretty intense waiting for news and such—yikes!

 Random other stuff….
-         Hit the shower and stay in there for more than 2 hours. LOVED the shower. Took the exercise ball in there and everything and it was just such an awesome tool to work with contractions. Frankly, even though it was labour and hard and all that, I did fairly well up to this point. My dr. and nurse were really pleased and encouraging with how I was coping and we even got some chat and jokes in J I think there’s much to be said for support and focus.
-         Had some grapes. They were amazing.
-         Couldn’t do much time sitting or sprawling as my contractions only stayed steady when I was walking, standing, or bending.
-         Nurses informed me that it was about time to push
-         Contractions hit their peak and I hit my worst. Now it got really tough.

 “The Last Hours” (kinda merges with the other…about 6:00-midnight)Contractions were nuts, I had chosen not to take drugs, and I was starting to feel the intensity. Turns out I wasn’t quite ‘there’ yet for pushing so Dr. went back home while I tried to finish the last 2 cm’s. Mentally, this was difficult as I thought I was at the end when I was really just entering the worst. There was a bit of a ‘lip’ to finish thinning on the cervix. Those couple of hours were intense. I made some pretty strange noises I think….
-         Had to really go to the bathroom, which is an issue that late in the game. Kept getting stuck on the toilet with contractions—not cool. Skipped all that and dealt with it later.
-         Found it difficult to settle into a favourite or really great position. Back and forth between standing and leaning forward to kneeling on the bed leaning on the bar. The shower (earlier) was still the best.

 Finally time to push and get down to it. I had been looking forward to this! Everyone had told me that “the urge to push is undeniable! It’s like this force that overtakes you and you just go with it, way better than the contractions!”. Well, Dr. arrived, threw on his scrubs, I was barely holding on, everyone got set to go and…the contractions stopped. Yup, just kinda quit. Ridiculous. So there we are, everyone looking at my crotch waiting for Baby, and I was like “umm…”. While some may think a little break like this is good I found it worked against my mental momentum. I was suddenly second guessing myself, asking Jer if I could do it, looking ‘down there’ and feeling like there was no way I ever could. It all seemed to far away when I just wanted to hold my baby. It had been close to 24 hours since my membranes had broken. So then:
-         Temp’ catheter inserted to drain bladder (didn’t feel that great at all)
- IV for fluids as I was totally dehydrated (blew the vein…tried again…didn’t feel good…small dose of stuff to kick start contractions again)

 So then we were off and pushing and, I’m going to be honest, it was crazy. It was hard. It was terrifying. It was not “an uncontrollable urge”. Nope. Every single push was a deliberate choice, knowing it hurt like hell, knowing it was going to harm me, watching what was actually happening (mirror), and doing it anyways. That lip on the cervix hadn’t fully disappeared so Dr. H reached up (this was BRUTAL) and pulled it up over the head while I pushed. I think I gave him a pretty good holler, it was ridiculous (but necessary…). For some reason I had thought that my pushing stage would be fast and efficient and fine, but those first few pushes produced so little and I suddenly realized just how much work it was going to be to get a whole baby through that opening. I stopped an told Jeremy “Okay. We can do this. I can do this. Let’s do this.”

Pushed and pushed. Saw stuff happening with the mirror. Touched head, saw hair, made the choice just to do it, dove in, finally remembered that I was the only one who could actually do what had to be done in that moment, no matter how terrifying. Wow. Everyone was AMAZING. The docter and nurses were all yelling and pushing right with me and it helped SO much. There calls of “GO GO GO!! Again!!! Go!” just kept me going while Jer let me pull against him. Dr. realized that head was kinda big…blah blah blah (this is long…) and we paused (seriously just stopped and talked) about tearing or cutting.  I had preferred a small tear but it sounded like it could be pretty crazy.I made the final call and we went ahead with a small cut which led to clean tear. Good choice in the end.

Head, shoulders, then he was there on my belly!!! Jer was crying, the Dr was blabbering about how it was impossible that he was that size, I was gushing, Jeremiah was just taking it all in. Jeremy cut the cord and then he was scooped away to clean out loads of gunk so he could breathe. Back to me and onto my breast, pretty much amazing.

 “Just when we thought it was done…”
Placenta came (WOW…HUGE) and then I felt a whole lot of ‘warm’. I looked at Dr. H’s face and asked, “Hm…feels like a whole lotta blood…” and he was like “yeaaaahhh….” So, time for more intensity. Needles, IV, tablets, ridiculous squishing of my belly, etc., to slow the  haemorrhage. I lost a lot of blood but it settled down by middle of the night.  Jeremy helped dr. H stitch me up. Jeremiah was weighed and dealt with and finally, more than an hour after delivery, we were ready. Jer took off to call everyone (who were all freaking out, poor people!) and got back to L&D in time walk with us to our room.

Settled in, fed again (he loves food like his mom!), then realized how starving I was. Inhaled toast and at about 1:00am we were ready to settle down. BUT, then everything kinda hit and I had some kinda shock/reaction. Body froze and went into shivering convulsions and crying and breathing—really scary. Nurse came in and dealt with me and we were finally finished with the whole thing.

 So that is an incredibly long record of what happened. Wow.

In summary:
-         About 25 hours from water breaking to delivery, 13 hours ‘active labour’
-         Jeremiah came out at 8 pounds 5 ounces
-         23 inches long (55 cm)
-         36 cm head!!!
-         I think he has my nose J

 Here’s what didn’t go with ‘the plan’ or wasn't amazing:
-         catheter
-         IV
-         Episiotomy (and now recovering from it. It’s a pretty brutal thing…)
-         Long long long time for everything
-         Being ‘checked’ so often (ouchy vaginal checks that were kinda brutal)
-         Going into shock in the end

 What was really awesome:
-         The respect my preferences and opinion were given. I could not have asked for better med’ support in any way.
-         Presence and support from Jeremy. He didn’t freak out, he hardly left my side, we didn’t yell or swear or hurt each other. He was quiet and patient and ready to assist with anything.
-         My young nurse stayed for 16 hours and gave up a special date night with her husband. She was amazing.
-         Healthy baby with perfect Apgar scores.
-         Being able to walk outside and wear my own clothes as long as I wanted to.
-         Nursing right away

 Anyways. I’ll update on here again a few times in the next week or two as this is the place for these kind of details. Huge thanks to you friends who were praying for us. Huge thanks for the support and encouragement.

 We’re home now and I’m pretty exhausted, I'm also eating anything and everything in sight. Jeremy has this week off, which is really great. Jeremiah chose not to sleep last night—not so great. Today we’ve learned a few things, my milk is coming in, and tonight should be better. I’m looking forward to getting my body back as soon as I can (walking, sitting, bladder, etc.). Alright. Time to go feed my son.

So this bun is almost baked my friends :) The time is near...or at least so they tell me. Depending on what ultrasound we go with, I'm due tomorrow or Monday-- both are right away, wow! Overall, I feel pretty good though I've lost pretty much all surplus energy.
Here's what's tricky now that I'm at the end:
- Putting socks on. Almost impossible. But funny.
- Preparing meals. If I want the energy to eat it I really can't use up energy preppin' it. Seriously. Meals are tricky business these days! I'm dipping into the 'post baby stash' but mostly just wanting yummer salads and craving big juicy sandwiches on real bread.
- Sticking to this RIDICULOUS diet. I've almost (kay...i have...) cracked a few times this week. I'm tired, I'm hungry, I should be done, so it's hard to keep the diligence and discipline. I keep thinking I'm there but I'm  not (sigh). The rhubarb is in and I can't wait to make a big warm sweet rhubarb/strawberry crisp with vanilla ice cream. One of these days...
- Being pleasant to people in public. If I don't know your name I'm not going to tell you about my cervix. Seriously. It is AMAZING what people will say/ask/tell about prego and baby stuff. Most recent: Last night, trying to feel prety as we went out for our anniversary supper. Waiter (that same waiter) says, "Wow Dee, you're getting REALLY big!" Ha. Thanks. That's exactly what I was going for ;)
- Being pleasant at home. I'm tired, I'm larger than life, and no I can't think at ALL about packing to move or having a garage sale (ore cleaning or laundry or getting up from where i just sat down...). I'm a horrible person.
- Coffee. Well, it's not a difficult but I sure am back into it! ;)

What's awesome at this stage:
- Knowing that sometime between tonight and 2 weeks I'll meet my baby. However late I might end up being, he's gotta come out somehow/someway/someday. We really have made it this far and I'm realy going to deliver him at some point. That's cool.
- The support of friends. Phone calls, coffee dates, walks, chats, treats; girlfriends know what's up at this stage and they're awesome.
- My belly. Kay, it's starting to look a little weird now, but overall, I think I produced a pretty nice little belly; not quite as terrifying as it could have been.
- My skin. I have a killer tan and even the belly is toasty. Gardening when prego' is hard but it brings on the sun :)
- Anticipation. There is a LOT to anticipate. I spend so much time thinking through the coming moments (labour, meeting him, nursing) and the coming treats (wine, fruit, chocolate...). Obviously the next stage and season is going to be exhausting, but there's also a TON to look forward to.
- Level of motion. Still pretty good. Still walking. Managed to get a minute or so of jogging in during the walk today.
- The awareness of my body changing. While I'm not in labour yet, stuff IS happening.

And finally. (wow, long entry hey?)
Last night I was SURE we were going to start stuff. My belly was rock hard, my back was aching, lots of 'show', and a sense of change. I was SO excited!!! We came back from our anniversary supper and then bought strawberries (and dipped some in chocolate!!) cuz I figured, "Hey, I'm havin' a baby, I can totally have a treat to kick it off cuz he'll be out soon anyways!" All night I had crampy/contractions, upset stomach, show, leaky boobs, etc. But, morning came and nothin' else did and that was that. Now it's evening and the same thing is starting up and I'm not sure whether to be excited or annoyed....
All in all, I'm really trying to appreciate, learn, and embrace the lessons of faith, rest, and patience this is all bringing. My baby is developed enough to come out, everything's ready. But for some reason it's not time yet and I'm learning how to let things be and how to wait. It's tricky business, but I'm sure there's a ton of good to be gained in it. I just keep reminding myself that we've made it this far. Yes, my doctor still leaves on Tuesday and chances are less and less that he'll deliver this guy, but even that has to have something good in it...right? I hope so.

So anyways. That's the big ol' update. I have new pics but it takes so much work to resize them for this site...I'll try in the next bit.... Keep praying that he comes in the next day or two friends; that'd be great. My sis' has her baby girl (Ava Faith) yesterday, so that brings the nieces/nephews of this calender year up to 5! Wow hey?  And I got some more diapers and they are AWESOME. Anyone ever tried 'Kissaluvs' with the Bummis W-Wraps? They are just so soft and gorgeous, I kind of wish i only purchased them and none of the others. If they work as well as they look/feel I'm totally going to stock up bit by bit. I found them at parentingbynature.com-- great Canadian site.

Alright. Happy weekend. Happy Baby Time!

Hey Friends,

Update:
- Our late ultrasound moved our due date up to Sunday the 22nd, but my Doc' just told me that we're sticking with Monday the 23rd as the earlier ultrasound is more accurate. So...due on Monday, not Sunday. That's fine.

And now the freaker-outter news that's making me feel a little wacky....
 My docter just mentioned that he's taking off for Seattle on Tuesday. Tuesday as in the day after I'm due. Seattle as in not anywhere near Three Hills. For a WEEK. He mentioned this just before he checked me to find that I'm still not really dilated (though 'softer' than last time). Man! I'm not sure what to do with this. I really like my docter; I trust him, he knows me, he's careful, we have a good thing going. On the flip side, I don't really know/trust the other docters, and they have crazier rep's for cutting and such. I don't really want Baby to come way later (just for my docter to be there...) as that would make him that much bigger and all that, but it just might be too early for him to come now since my body isn't progressing that quickly.
SO. Think of me, pray for me. I need to relax and just flow with this, somehow. What would be amazing would be if Baby would come this weekend; close to his due date but before my Doc' is gone. Anyone feel Friday? Saturday? That would be awesome. Nothing's going to get moving if I don't relax and just 'be', but it's hard not to be anxious when looking ahead at such an unexpected shift. So yeah. Really hoping to give birth this weekend, really hoping to live well through this with a right attitude and focus, really hoping for God's best.

Wow, here I am, updating AGAIN. Impressed? Or wondering why I'm updating three days in a row? Haha, oh well, it helps to update and feel like something is progressing.

Total Weight Gain= 16 pounds (63.3 kgs)
Prego Days= 2 days from start of week 39
Current Due Date= Sunday, June 22
State of Mind= Better than last night. Expectant, but patient.
State of Body= Mobile, hard belly, a little sleepy, but really quite fantastic for this stage of the game.
Ankles= Not swollen anymore!

So, when Dr. put his gloves up there yesterday he must have irritated something, cuz last night was miserable! My cervix wasn't 'ripe' or anything when he checked and he said there's no way Baby's coming this weekend, but holy cow, i was swamped with mad cramps last night. It felt like the mother of all periods and I was suddenly terrifed with the reality that I am going to be a complete WUSS in labour!!! :( Seriously. These weren't 'contractions', this wasn't anything serious at all and it kept me awake with tears! Dang, I better find some focus and backbone somewhere or else I'm gonna be hooped when the day arrives.
So anyway. Cramps, pain, weirdness. Dropped 'the plug' around 3:00am and everything settled down and now I feel great. Funny hey? So...who knows? Baby is busy, belly is hard, cervix is hopefully gettin' down to business (yeah right...), and I'm appreciating the extra days I have to relax. 10 days from the date. Though who knows, maybe it's like 25 days or something. It's now time to be extra on guard with my attitude and expressions and try to pull this off like my girls this year who have been so awesome in the midst of waiting, pain, delay, and birth.

So. Happy Fathers Day weekend. Oh, and yes Jamie, I'll totally try to post a pic' today or tomorrow of the current belly. It's actually (in my opinion...haha) pretty adorable and not too crazy. I've also taken pics of the room and stuff. But for now, time for a walk and then time for me and reading and art and such, while I can.