Birth Story: Part The Third (To The Hospital!)

Before reading, please see Disclaimer For The Birth Story, here;

Also read Part One, here, and Part Two, here for the story so far...

And so, to the hospital we drove, Turner, Mom and I in one car, and Brother John in another. We parked in the wrong lot and had to walk through the entirety of the hospital labyrinth to find Maternity Care on the 6^th floor of the main wing.

[As a side note - did you know that they LOCK the Rockyview doors after 9pm? Even the doors leading to the hospital from the parking garage? This meant that we had to stand out in the cold, banging on the windows for almost five minutes (it would have taken ten minutes to walk around the outside of the whole building to reach the Emerg entrance), before some people came along and opened the door for us. Although I'm sure there's some amazing and paranoid post-9-11 rationale for LOCKING THE HOSPITAL DOORS THAT LEAD IN FROM THE PARKING GARAGE after 9pm, this pregnant-and-in-labour-woman is already going to tell you that whatever reason it is, is bullshit. (Ahem.)]
 
I had brought my huge body pillow (note to pregnant people and their husbands/partners: I highly recommend bringing your own huge and comfy pillow), so as we were making our endless trek through the bowels of the Rockyview Hospital, whenever I had a contraction I’d head for the nearest wall and conk against the pillow to ride it out.

When we reached the ward, I was in pretty good spirits. I still had that loopy vision of already being 7 or 8 cm dilated and sailing through the labour with no serious problems, remember – so I was happy and smiling, I explained most of the situation to the nurses at the desk myself, with Turner taking over during the contractions. Things were going fine, and they were pulling my chart, getting me set up with an examination room, and so on.

And then, in came a woman in a far more advanced stage of labour than me. She was siting in a wheelchair, pushed by an orderly. Drenched in sweat, her hair was ropey and stuck to her face; she was pale, and breathing all raggedy, and was obviously in more pain that I’d experienced in my whole life.

I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but my whole body sent me a crystal clear signal: LOOK AWAY. Every innate instinct I had for surviving what was to come was on full alert, very insistent that I spend not even one more second in this woman’s presence. I found myself walking to the ward bathroom, where I elaborately washed my hands and face, and spent some time intently studying the posters therein. A few minutes later I was being lead into an examination room and I could hear another woman, labouring in the next room over, moaning and calling out, “Allah… Allah…” I made Brother John shut the door, and pull the curtain surrounding the bed.

It was around this time that sound started bothering me: at each contraction I found that any and all extraneous sound was unexpectedly aggravating, and I began plugging my ears when I could feel the surge coming on. Later, this escalated such that I demanded everyone around me stop talking, moving, crinkling paper, shuffling their feet – any motion that created noise had to come to a halt during my contractions. I've heard that some women get very light-sensitive when labouring, some can't stand their spouse. Some women get hungry. Some women need to be alone, in the dark. Me, I couldn't take any noise. None. …But I’ll get to that. I got John to close the door to my exam room, in any case, so at that point I wouldn’t have to listen to the other labouring women in agony in the adjacent rooms.

The nurses hooked me up to a fetal monitor and a contraction monitor, which means two plastic disks are strapped to your tummy (with quaint blue and pink straps) and they feed information into a machine that goes ping! beside the bed. Unfortunately, these monitors essentially obligate the labouring woman to lie prone on the table and not move. Like, you can shift your weight and sit up if you need to, but you can’t get out of bed and walk around. The equipment is establishing the baseline of the baby’s vital stats, and that’s important and all. But I was doing well when I was at home and could get up and move around, lean over, dance and jiggle and jive when necessary. I found the necessary immobility for this procedure not so good.

…Now, I’m not going to dis the HealthLink people or the Calgary Health Region, but for me, the advice of going to the hospital meant that I spent fifteen minutes trapped in the car, followed soon afterward by twenty five minutes trapped on the examination table. For me, being immobile all that time was not a positive development. In fact, it escalated the intensity of the labour, and by the time the monitoring was done, my contractions were fairly regular at about two and a half minutes apart, and were getting stronger and stronger. The edges were starting to blur and I was feeling the beginnings of anxiety. However, overall I was still mostly okay (though less comfortable, for sure), and I got some nice compliments from the nurses about what good control I was maintaining. Like I say, I was expecting labour to be hard, but manageable – so I was okay with how things were proceeding so far, especially since I figured the birth itself was getting pretty close by this point.

Then they gave me an internal exam. Sez the nurse, smiling, looking up from between my legs: “You’re about a centimetre dilated, and about 75% effaced. You’re doing good!”

In the tv-movie version of this story, a big 3-chord duh! duh! duh! progression will follow this announcement. I looked at Turner in horror: only one centimetre dilated? After all this time, already? ... Oh Jesus ...that meant there were hours and hours and hours to go.

And then: …One centimetre?

ONE CENTIMETRE?

Oh no.

For those of you blissfully unaware of where dilation goes until now, you have to get to TEN centimetres dilation before anything serious like pushing and delivering-the-baby actually becomes imminent. For the first time, I realized I myself might end up hunched over and sweating with my hair all stuck to my head, or moaning and calling for god, and not just sailing through the labour like enduring a mild charley horse in the uterus, as per the plan. In short, this news was the clear gong of truth and popped fantasy bubbles: things were going to get a lot, lot, lot harder before the baby was born.

Goddamn. This was going to be rough.

Categories: Mom-ness

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Birth Story: Part The Second (Early Labour)

Before reading, please see Disclaimer For The Birth Story, here, and Part One, here.

After a few more laps, we headed back in the house, and Turner started to count the contractions and time the intervals between. The surges were good and regular, but coming 2 and 4 minutes apart. Which seemed… really close together, like Turner said. In the birthing class we were told to expect the contractions to be irregular and erratic, and initially pretty far apart. Like, maybe 40 min apart, to start. Well, not for me. Although things weren’t that intense yet, and I could walk and talk through the contractions, the contractions were definitely 2 to 4 minutes apart. Right off the bat: bang.

So... the contractions were close together, is what I'm saying. ...Maybe too close together. Turner was worried.

I wasn’t, me. I got Mom to paint my toenails, and did some email to alert Cousin Jenna and Ainsley that things were underway. Turner straightened up the house a bit, tried to reach his parents (in Cuba for a cousin’s wedding), and rubbed my head.

We went along for a few hours like that. I’ll be honest, early labour is a bit anticlimactic. Before you get there, you think it’ll be all screaming, pushing, sweating, the birth, etcetera. But no matter how fast your labour goes, you do get a bit of time in the early hours where it’s just contractions, between which you feel like a regular person (albeit a regular person with a basketball stomach, cankles, and a tendency to burst into tears at the Tim Hortons soccer camp commercials). You're excited, but there's not much you can do except ride it out, and wait for what's to come. I had a few showers, and put away some laundry. Mom called Brother John, and Dad, and announced in hushed and reverent tones that the labour had begun.

By 9:30pm or so I was lying down and Mom or Turner would push on my back through the contractions. Things were going well, and I was on top of the pain, which seemed to be getting clearer, somehow, rather than bigger. I felt in control and I was proud of myself. I had visions of finally going to the hospital at some point in the early morning and being pronounced 7cm dilated with not far to go. I had notions about my tough-girl pain tolerance, the years of soccer and massage and previous illness setting me in good stead to endure the experience of labour and delivery using deep breathing techniques and a few hours in the hospital shower stall. I was, in short, all up in my own kool-aid and I didn’t even know the flavour. So to speak.

Now, around this time, Turner, still worried about the 2-4 min. apart contractions, finally broke down and called the HealthLink line. This is a Calgary Health Region service where you can call and talk to an RN. The idea is to shorten emergency room waiting times by providing telephone triage to the general populace. So Turner calls the line, mainly because he’s still a bit confused and worried about how the contractions got so regular and close together without the big long preamble of hours and hours of irregular and erratic ones we were told to expect. And he tells the nurse at the other end that my contractions are between 2 to 4 minutes apart. And the nurse tells him that it’s time for us to go to the hospital.

Now, at this point in the game I’m not ready to go to the hospital. (Insert cartoon image here of 4-year-old Ashley stamping her feet.) In the birthing class they told us that you go to the hospital a) when the contractions are 3 – 5 minutes apart, and b) you can’t walk or talk through them, or c) when the woman wants to go. Sure, the contractions were close and regular. But me, I was all dug in! I was comfortable at our house, lying in bed and pacing the livingroom! The hot water tank was holding up nicely! And… and… I could still walk and talk through the contractions!

Plus… I didn’t want to go!

So we had a few minutes of mutually-respectful arguing (with times-out for contractions) over whether or not we should get in the car and head to the Rockyview. Finally Turner suggested we call back the HealthLink line and I could talk to the nurse myself. Fine, sez I, still not wanting to go to the hospital, but also not wanting to worry Turner by blatantly disregarding the clear directions provided him by the medical professionals at the other end of the telephone. So I talked to a different nurse, and we explained the situation again, and she said to go to the hospital.

I still didn’t want to go, but I was reluctantly willing to follow the explicit directions of a representative of the Calgary Health Region (and since they take all this biodata from you off the top when you call, now we were twice entered into their database as “not wanting to go to the hospital yet, despite contractions 2 – 4 min. apart”, which made me nervous that if something were to go wrong, they’d blame me). So we spent about fifteen minutes quickly packing up everything we thought we’d need for the rest of the labour, called a bunch of the people we’d promised to call (and in the rush forgot to call everyone who wasn’t immediate family), and into the car we climbed.

Categories: Mom-ness

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Birth Story: Part The First (It's Go Time, People!)

Before reading, please see Disclaimer For The Birth Story here.

The labour started in the evening, Friday, March 18th.

It took a good long while to figure out that what was happening was actually labour, because I’d been increasingly uncomfortable all day with what I thought was lower intestine troubles. Like many nine-months-pregnant women I had become constipated – in those final weeks of pregnancy the child is huge, and often ends up blocking the regular plumbing down in the pelvic region. I’d never been constipated in my life and found it greatly troubling, to say the least. It’s an uncomfortable condition. I’d taken to drinking prune juice and eating a bunch of All Bran (and even sent Turner to the drugstore for castor oil but he spoke to the pharmacist who did not  recommend it, so he came home with a wimpy stool softener), all in the hopes of jostling things loose and providing a bit of pre-delivery physical relief of the situation.

Now, the baby’s official due date was Tuesday, March 15^th, so by Friday of that week I was ready and fully willing to go into labour. We’d been attending a “Baby and Beyond” class through the Calgary Health Region, and the teachings therein made it clear that labour would probably start out really slow, and get more intense over a number of hours. So when I started cramping at around 5pm on Friday night, initially I thought it was gas and intestinal issues brought on by the wallop of fibre and poo-enhancing chemicals I’d thrown into my body over the previous few days.

But by around 6pm, something was different. I can only say that it was a feeling. As in “a feeling”. One of those nebulous, fuzzy-edged senses that something was going on. I was suddenly really restless, and couldn’t sit down to dinner. So while my mom and Turner sat down to homemade soup, I put on headphones and headed outside to pace up and down the back lane a bit.

Out in the air, in the cold and gathering dusk, listening to Wilco as I crunched back and forth over the gravel in the alley, I started to notice a pattern to the cramping. I didn’t have a watch, so I counted out the duration of the surges by my steps – they were coming about twice per lap up and down the lane (a short block, maybe ten houses), and lasting between 20 and 25 steps each. It took me quite a while to actually clue in to what was happening, but finally it started to dawn on me that this might very well actually be the onset of labour.

Now, I need to just pause the story for a moment, here. It might seem to the outside observer that of course this was labour. Sure, yes. Nine months pregnant, four days overdue and experiencing regular cramping? Sounds like labour contractions to me! But I should report that something tricksy and bizarre happens to your brain in late pregnancy. The only way to describe it is as a sort of rationality-lapse psychosis. The symptoms are some or all of the following:

1. becoming fairly certain that the pregnancy might actually go on forever, and you might never go into labour,
2. suspecting that you might do something “wrong” during labour and it’ll stop altogether, and
3. fearing the birth might kill you and/or the baby

Now, #3 is semi-reasonable from a purely biological point of view, though highly unlikely in 21^st century Canada, let’s be honest. Socialized medicine, lowest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world, supergreat drugs to help you deal… yeah, you’ll probably live if you give birth here in the Great White North. And the baby’ll be fine, too, 99.999% likely. But it doesn’t stop you from worrying, mind. Oh no.

Those other worries are total bunk too, obviously. But it’s difficult to overstate how real and visceral are the suspicions that confound you in those final days. I mean, seriously: I took Bio in high school and university. I read the pregnancy books. I saw the birth videos. I heard the womanlore all my life. Sure as anything, labour comes when it comes, whether you like it or not (most don’t), and pregnancy at nine months always ends in labour unless you have scheduled yourself into a planned c-section (which I hadn’t). It’s going to happen, is what I’m saying. I knew that. But even I got to a place (a quiet place, one of those places you don’t talk about with the people around you because you know how crazy the ideas sound) where I was sincerely and seriously pondering the possibility that I might be pregnant for the rest of my life. Seriously.

So, strange as it may seem to an outside observer/reader, it was, in fact, an enormous relief to entertain the idea that I might actually, finally, be in labour. As a woman, labour is a biological possibility that you spend years anticipating (mostly in fear), from the moment of your first period. And once you’re pregnant, it’s basically impossible to fully enjoy the idea of becoming a mother without running smack into the giant scariness that is the inevitable hurdle of labour and delivery. But, somehow, somehow, the millennia of genetics have it all cased out, because by the nine month mark you’re ready and rearing to go, despite it all.

Despite the advance billing: good god it hurts. Despite the availability of special drugs and procedures to make it bearable: everyone says “Don’t be a hero. Take the drugs.” Despite the legions of women before you who just roll their eyes and say that you wouldn’t believe them anyway, so they’re not going to describe it. The reality: pain – lookout, amazing pain ahead. Yep. Despite all that, despite the full foreknowledge of the aaaa-go-ny and suffering to come, in those penultimate weeks and days and hours, it’s all Let’s get this show on the road! Yeehaw! Move ‘em out! In short, you’re ready. You know you’re in for pain, but you’re willing to pull off the bandaid. By the nine month mark all you can think, day and night, is this: Okay, bring it on!

So in light of all this, we return to the narrative – there was me, pacing the alleyway behind our house, hoping with all my might that this indeed was labour, and that it wouldn’t go away. I was out there for a good half hour, tromping back and forth. Periodically mom would stick her head out the door and yell something that I couldn’t hear over the music in the headphones. And eventually Turner threw on his jacket and came and paced a bit with me. “Do you think this is labour?” sez he. “Um, I dunno. But I’m having crampy surges that last 20 – 25 steps…. About twice per lap” sez I, trying to sound rational and calm, not wanting to jinx things. “Uh, that’s pretty close together, Ash,” sez Turner, sceptical. But just giving voice to what was going on seemed to make it real: finally, labour. Here it was. Here we go!

Categories: Mom-ness

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100 Days Of Sloane

Today marks Sloane's 100th day of life outside the womb. In Korea this day is celebrated as Baek-il, the day to give congratulations for the baby's birth and its passage into safety as a maturing human life. In honour of my great friend Nam Ki-Sung, who I met in the Philippines ten years ago and with whom a great deal of soccer was played, I observe this day for my daughter. She gets her first official taste of water, and a bit of rice (likely to be spit out, if our experiments with 'solid' food to date are an indication).

   An-yong hasei oh!

Also in observance of this milestone, I include the first of the five-part series, entitled, The Story Of Sloane's Birth From Her Mother's Point Of View. I was going to write and post this in the immediate post partum period, in theory. But frankly, I was just too exhausted and wrung out to be sure of my own judgement on matters online-literary. After a while it seemed that the website and my outbound emails only contained stories about Sloane and shortened versions of the experience of giving birth, so this story seemed like way too much information for friends and family in the immediate aftermath. I mean, we still wanted people coming to visit and calling with congratulations, unhindered by the images this story would probably call forth for people who know us. So I decided to wait a bit, and hold off until Sloane's 100th day. So here we are.

Disclaimer For The Birth Story:

Lookit: if you don’t want to know how my labour went, stop reading right now. This is the true story, and I’m warning you right off the top that it’s specific, graphic, and in the opinions of some, perhaps even gory. If you’re not good with the whole idea of birth, and the concept of children emerging after hours of labour from women’s vaginas, this story isn’t for you. If you’re not good with descriptions of medical procedures, and hospital drama, and intense pain, this story isn’t for you. If you’re some random person who knows of me from way back in junior high or via Harriet’s Magic Hats and you’ve somehow stumbled upon my website, I have a feeling that this story isn’t for you – but you’re free to make that call for yourself. What I’m driving at is this: this is the story of the labour and delivery of my daughter. Period.

Having said all that, plus the disclaimer, we move on. Happy reading...

Categories: Mom-ness | Sloane

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Sloane's Pictoral Week In Review: 14.0

Sometimes I look at her when she's sleeping and can't wait for her to wake up.

Not tonight, though - a perfect baby all day as we ran errands with Cousin Tanya, Sloane decided at 8:30pm that in order to balance out her universe, a great deal of screaming was in order. Finally asleep at 10pm, our smarkotch poses for her Review photo, unawares.

Categories: Sloane

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Sloane's Pictoral Week In Review: 13.0

Basically it's just a huge pain in the bum to upload pictures from Nakusp, so things got delayed.

Happy Father's Day, Turner! (Red hair, double chin, good view of developing snotball...)

Categories: Sloane

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Sloane's Pictoral Week In Review: 12.0

Lookit our smiling smiler, smiling her smiley smile.

Categories: Sloane

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Alberta Beef

We went to an antiques fair over the weekend, and mid-way through we needed to refuel. Sloane was being very agreeable, so I risked a quick bite. 

I post pictures such as these so's you'll know, and try it yourself. There's no use in pretending dainty-ness here - a woman's gotta eat, and once you're a mother it seems often as not you'll eat your food cold, by yourself, after everyone else is done and off watching tv. So get in there and get it while it's hot whenever you can.

And thus, our photo essay of Mom Eats: The Art Of Avoiding Dropping Food On Your Kid...

(The secret lies in balancing the plate on her head, I realized.)

Postscript: Thanks to Sean Monkman for the above gif animation!!

Categories: Mom-ness

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Its'er Flood!

Rain, rain, rain. It's been five days of rain and Alberta is in the national news as one big flood zone. Turner and I left Sloane with Margo tonight, and went to look at the high water levels on the Elbow River as it flows through the centre of the city.

We're fans of weather and big believers that you should get out there and first-handedly experience the forces of natures when extreme stuff is on display. But truly, it was very cool. The water was SO high. Looking across the river from Stanley Park, the houses in Elbow Park seemed safe, though the yards were pretty soggy. The "No Swimming" sign, usually right at the shoreline, was now a good five or six metres out in the thick of the current.

It was a wet night - it's still raining - but there were plenty of people in yellow slickers and wellies, walking the paths and surveying the houses under threat of flooding. Turner, on same: "Well, what else is there to do in Calgary tonight? It's a miserable night... Let's go watch the rich people worry!"

The floodgates at the Glenmore Reservoir dam are open to their maximum. All the communities downstream are, to put it lightly, raaather nice. On the news tonight they announced that city crews were going door-to-door in Elboya, Riverdale, Roxboro, etc., warning residents of the flooding risk and establishing the evacuation protocol should it be necessary to remove people from the affected areas. And that SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, a local tech college) had been set up to give flood victims a place to sleep overnight. Ash: "Yeaaaaahhh... I just don't think the residents of Riverdale and Rideau are going to end up sleeping on the gym floor at SAIT."

We here at Chez Bristowe-Turner are, in fact, only about three hundred metres from the Elbow River, here in Ramsay. So we did a bit of checking in the basement, to see if the drains had backed up and so on, but everything looks okay so far. We're not overly concerned about the risk of direct flooding - there's a big hill between us and the rising waters. Ah, the benefits of living in a former slum... no worries about sandbagging the nonexistant riverfront properties.

Categories: Calgary | House

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Momma Bear Shuts Up

I was running over to our neighbours' place yesterday to tell them about Sloane's party, when I noticed a man on the sidewalk next door to John's house (so, four houses down from ours), standing in full view of the street, pulling at his fly and preparing to pee on the hedge. Spiller Road is a wide, main thoroughfare through the community of Ramsay, and this guy had set up in the midst of a school zone - cars passing by were going max 30 km/h. As I crossed the street, I glanced at him, fully in his line of vision. I figured he'd pull up and stop once he saw me, obviously someone who lived nearby (I was jacketless and in my house slippers), crossing the road in front of him. Not so. I got a far better look at his equipment than I felt was necessary, frankly. I really don't think I needed to see a stranger's testicles at 11am on a Saturday morning; maybe that's just me.  

This is an older community, and it's in transition. When I was growing up in Calgary, Ramsay was 60% vacant and known as a really skiddy area. Now, sure, it's gentrifying, but there's a solid proportion of the local population in a seriously low income situation, and a good number of folks wandering around the community on their way between "here" and "there", neither being anyplace in particular. We're close to the East Village shelters, and the Stampede racetrack. Many of the houses here are small, and dumpy, with ancient shingles and more than one cat scratchpost tree on the front porch. And some people have fancy cars. Really fancy cars. A lot fancier cars than you'd think would belong to people who live across the street from the Lilydale chicken processing plant.

But I dunno - irrespective of all this and the obvious realities of our neighbourhood, I don't like the idea of random men peeing on the neighbours' hedges, particularly as brazenly as this guy was doing. I mean, peeing in the back alley - okay. Not super, but okay. There are cars and people going up and down our alleys all the time, garbage hunting and collecting bottles. Dogs poop back there and owners don't pick it up. And sure, far be it from me to claim I've never peed outdoors, particularly in alleys. So again, the alley - okay, fine with me. But right on the street? In a school zone? C'mon.

The house of which hedge this guy was peeing on was recently moved-into by some new renters. They looked nice, our age, pretty straight. I'm fairly certain they too wouldn't like the idea of random men peeing on their hedge, rented or no. And more to the point, four houses down isn't really that far from our front door. I got the distinct sense that if the urge to urinate had struck this guy fifty metres later, it wouldn't have mattered that we have a fence rather than a shrubbery along the front lawn. It's yucky enough that we are constantly picking up trash in front of the house, dropped by the numerous asshats who finish their chili dog or unwrap their smokes as they pass our gate. I'm not all that interested in our front yard being the de facto unloading dock for strangers' bodily fluids, either, thanks.

Now, before I became a mom, it'd've been a safe bet to predict that I would've yelled at the guy. My invective likely would've started out, "HEY ASSHOLE - THAT'S NOT A URINAL." Something like that. And gone on to tell him a bit more of what I thought of his behaviour, and maybe finished off with a threat to call the cops, though generally I like to just embarrass people and let them draw their own conclusions as to possible consequences.

But I didn't say anything this time. I started to - I even drew in the big breath necessary. But then I stopped. As per the new brain chemistry since Sloane's birth, my mind was racing through and enumerating all possible ways such a situation, once initiated, could turn out not-so-great. I'm all into this unbidden worst-case-scenarioizing since I delivered the baby. Like this: this guy is one of the regulars at The Shamrock, our local divey bar (and Calgary landmark), and he decides to make a point of peeing on our fence every day on his way to and from the pub, for the next year. Yeck. Or: this guy is one of the jiggle-leg meth/crack addicts that hang out at the 7-Eleven, and he makes a point of breaking into the house next week to get stuff to steal. Yikes. Or: this guy is a mentally ill outpatient, takes note of what I look like, and he waits around for when I take Sloane for her next walk and ends up trying to hurt the baby. Criminy. Or... who knows. Something else, something worse. (Worse than all that? Sure.)

Suddenly I'm not the girl who yells HEY ASSHOLE at the guy peeing on my neighbour's hedge, anymore. Suddenly I'm a mom, and my only real goal in life is to protect my child. Anything that is a threat, no matter how remote, is to be avoided. And if that means saying nothing to the probably-just-a-local-guy-en-route-to-the-Sev-for-a-slurpee peeing on my neighbours' hedge, for now - so be it.

But I don't think I needed to see his testicles. He could have spared me that.

Categories: Mom-ness

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Sloane's Pictoral Week In Review: 11.0

After weeks of careful participant-observation work, Sloane has started to appreciate the nuances of email etiquette and web design. (Ash is uploading photos of Gramma Margo's visit and today's Come-On-Down-&-Meet-Sloane party, available here.)

Categories: Sloane

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