Evacuation notice

My last day of work was a Friday.  I decided to go off work two weeks early so I could have some one on one time with Lily before the baby was born.  We had a regular weekend.  I had a doctor's appointment Monday so Lily went to daycare.  Tuesday we ran errands in the city.  We went to the hospital to have lunch with Scott.  Of course Lily wouldn't walk so I had to carry her the whole time.  After lunch we went home to have a nap.  I couldn't sleep because I was having "back spasms" from carrying Lily all day.  (In hindsight, these were irregular contractions!!)
That night Scott joked that sex brings on labour...it's none of your business whether or not this is true.  At 3:00 am I woke up.  I had heard that being this pregnant can make you urinary incontinent.  I couldn't believe that I had just peed the bed.  Gross.  I got up, finished peeing in the bathroom, changed my clothes and the bed and crawled back in.  I was just falling asleep when I peed again.  How was that even possible?  Gross.  I got up and went back to the bathroom, but I didn't even have to pee.  I changed (AGAIN!!) and laid a towel on the bed.  I'm just about asleep when I peed a third time.  What the hell?  I stood up to go back to the bathroom and WHOOSH!!  It wasn't pee at all.  My water broke!!  I start laughing hysterically at my own confusion.  I walked to the bathroom and stood there trying to figure out what to do.  There is a constant trickle down my leg and no one told me what to do about it on the way to the hospital.  I get things under control, finish packing my bag, and call our friends to let them know we are dropping Lily off there.  And ouch...a contraction.  In exactly the same spot that my back spasms were yesterday.  Time to wake up Lily and get to the city.  We get my bags....and I mean bags, into the car.  (You don't really need your housecoat, scrabble, make up, blow dryer, etc.  but I didn't know that yet!)  We are ready to go.  We start the car and all the lights on the dash start blinking.  Why now?  We turn off the car and start it again.  Blink, blink, ugh!  Months later we learn that it is something to do with a faulty command start, but why did it have to start that night??
We drop Lily off at our friends house.  It is 3:30 am and Lily knows we are excited about something so she is no longer tired.  Thank you Shannon for staying up with her and still choosing to be our friend!  This is one of many reasons that you are Jack's godmother. My contractions are now more regular.  Scott stops at 7-11 for a snack....men!  We get checked in and they need to swab me because they don't think my water broke....WHAT??  Did I really pee myself three times?  Nope...breakage confirmed.  I am assigned a bed and told to call them when my contractions are five minutes apart.  An hour later, we start timing them.  Five minutes....call the nurse.  Get checked.  Not yet.  They offer me morphine, but I don't want the baby to have any.  At 6:30 am, we call my mom to come to Saskatoon and pick up Lily.  She is excited... I'm losing my excitement to tiredness.  Noon...still contracting but not dilated.  Ugh!  They really encourage the morphine.  I am going to need sleep to keep going.  I accept.  I was told that the morphine would not stop the contractions.  Labour would progress while I slept.  Woke up 3-4 hours later...contraction free.  Mom comes to visit.  You can see the pity in her eyes as she had a long labour with me, but tries to act optimistic.  Mom goes to pick up Lily and we go for a walk around the hospital avoiding the fertility clinic area...I know how it felt to see those damn labouring women while I was their patient.  Oh how I wanted to be them with their faces scrunched up in pain. Contractions return. YAY!  Pain is actually minimal but I want to be checked again so I lie a little and say that it really hurts.  They check me again.  We are going to labour and delivery.
Nice place!  Rocking chair.  Ipod dock.  Phone.  Too bad your time there isn't more enjoyable.  Oxytocin started.  My first nurses weren't the best.  They suggested waiting until I couldn't stand the pain anymore before asking for an epidural.  In hindsight, this was a mistake.  Oxytocin cranked up.  Double contractions....one strong one followed by one less strong with little time in between.  More oxytocin.  Suddenly really strong contractions but every contraction makes the baby's heart rate drop.  Everyone realizes that the cord is around the baby's neck and so we try to find a better position to make the heartbeat more regular.  Nothing really works and I can no longer stand the pain.  Epidural, please.  Anesthesiologist in with another patient.  Fantastic husband and fantastic Sandi (my new nurse) help me not to lose my mind. Epidural in (why is it not immediate?) and finally relief.  They don't want to check me too much because it has now been 20 hours since my water broke and they don't want to introduce any bacteria.  I have a sudden urge to push and they say that there is no way that I am dilated yet.  I explain that I am going to push whether they check me or not.  They give in...and I was right.  Except where they are supposed to feel a head, they feel a hand.  Yes, my baby is waving hello to everyone.  They get the OB/GYN who stays for the rest of the delivery.  I have heard that they are not usually there for the whole thing so this worries me some.  It is now almost midnight and I really want to have this baby before midnight.  It is Scott's brother's birthday tomorrow and no one should have to share their birthday.  They say go ahead and push and I give it my all.  My husband and nurse are both incredibly helpful.  I keep pushing.  It is past midnight.  I didn't make it.  Suddenly I can hear the heart rate drop.  There is a flurry of activity.  They grab the vacuum.  (During prenatal classes I said that I did not want to use the vacuum or forceps. I told Scott if they wanted to, he should talk them out of it.)  Scott looks at me sadly.  At this point I realize that we are in some trouble.  One more push and the baby is actually ripped from me by the vacuum.  Super weird.  And IT'S A BOY!!  
Seriously?  I had been calling him she for nine months.

The one and only....pregnancy

Scott and I were discussing my pregnancy today.  It is funny how you forget the tough stuff and only remember it being blissfully happy.  Scott does not forget.  He labels the trimesters as scary, nice, and grumpy.  It's not that we're complaining....we have a beautiful baby boy.  It was totally worth it.
My pregnancy began on Scott's 30th birthday.  Most men would have some sort of celebration on that day.  Instead Scott got to hold my hand while our eggs were removed, masturbate in an old hospital bathroom, and wheel his semi-conscious wife back to our car.  I did take him out for lunch, but I don't know how good of company I was.  Days later I had to ask him where we went.  We hoped that we would be able to look back at that day as a present to him....and we do, because one of the embryos created on his 30th birthday became our son Jack.
Being that we had thought about eventually getting pregnant for seven years, we were excited to tell our families. We made a shirt that said "Big Sister December 2009" and went to Scott's parents house with Lily wearing it.  The reactions to that shirt were priceless.  Scott's parents initially thought it was a hand me down from someone else, but the date tipped them off to the pregnancy.  My mom stood in stunned silence trying to process the information.  My brother ignored the shirt even though we knew he had seen it.  I think he was too scared to try to guess what it meant.  And his girlfriend asked when we were "getting a baby."  The obvious question as that's what we did before.
Five days before my initial ultrasound I started bleeding.  I was sure I was losing the baby but because we were on holidays in another city, my fertility clinic couldn't really help us.  The morning of the ultrasound was so scary.  When they pointed out that little heartbeat, my own heart skipped a beat.  How could you already be in love with something so small.  They pointed out another gestational sack that no longer had a heartbeat.  I was sad for a moment for that baby, but knew that there was a chance there would be no heartbeat at all and so I celebrated the fact that there was.  We began to show people the picture of the ultrasound.  We couldn't keep it a secret any longer.
At ten weeks I woke up to a rush of blood.  I ran to the bathroom and was shocked to see how much blood I had lost.  I called the OB/GYN at the hospital and she suggested that I wait until morning and then call the clinic.  I did NOT sleep.  In the morning we had another ultrasound.  We saw and heard the heartbeat again.   (Scott pointed out that the sound wasn't actually the heartbeat but the machine creating a sound from the ultrasound.  Sometimes having a diagnostic person in your family isn't too fun. ) I had bleeding off and on for three weeks and ended up having to go on bed rest for two weeks.  Super scary the whole time.  Many sleepless nights and ultrasounds later, the bleeding stopped.
The second trimester was wonderful.  It was nice to be big enough that people could tell you were pregnant but not so big that you were uncomfortable.  I felt beautiful.  It was incredible.  We went on vacation to Vancouver Island.  We hiked, we swam, we relaxed.  It was blissful.
I don't think I was grumpy in the third trimester.  Perhaps my co-workers would disagree.  Scott certainly would.  I was due December 15th but I was sure that "she" would be born on November 30th.  I was sure it was a girl all along.  So much for mother's intuition.  November 30th came and went.  I now thought I would be late.  My mom was really overdue with me and I thought I was in for the long haul.  When my water broke on December 2nd, I had no idea what was happening to me.  I thought I had peed the bed, but was amazed when I kept peeing the bed over and over.  And whoever is telling you that there is no whoosh when the water breaks...well, they're not telling you the whole truth.
During my whole infertility journey, I thought the positive pregnancy test would mean success.  But the fear and the stress never went away until I held my baby in my arms. I thought I would relax after the first trimester, but I didn't.  They say that a baby is viable after 30 weeks, but that didn't do it either.  Labour was long and stressful.  It had it's moments of fear.  I had to actually hold him to know that we had made it.