Flickr: A Recommendation

I've posted a bunch of the photos from our trip thusfar on my Flickr account. But here, a taste:

AGP, where's your blue and white striped shirt? Didn't you get the Boys' Weekend dress code memo?

Summertime lakeside!

Sloaner meeting the Toronto relatives.

...And much more! Lemme no if you don't have a Flickr account.

Categories: Canadiana | Friends | Sloane | Ontario

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Antigonish, Antigonish County

We're in Antigonish, enjoying our digs in the basement of Margo and John's amazing new house on the McConnell homestead property here in town. Our room is decorated with a Planet Simpson poster and features a crib for the Sloanester and a view of town out the huge window. Photos will go up soon. But the house is great, brand new but has a soul. The details are perfect. It looks like it's been here forever, a lovely resoration of a century home.

So anyway, here we are, Day Three. Today's adventures started out with attending Liam's graduation from basketball camp down at St. FX. Then we took stock of the local mls listings and zoomed around town with Margo in tow to check out the local real estate market. Thus tantalized, Turner and I went out again later on to look further afield east of town. Two listings peaked our interest among the available properties - the $55,000 special that boasts a 1200 sq.ft. house on six acres overlooking the ocean, and the $62,000 special that seemed to include two houses and two outbuildings on three acres also with an ocean view. Like, huh? What gives? You can't actually get a liveable property that isn't a trailer for under $100K, can you?

Well, I dunno - see for yourself:

House #1: MLS 200322460

House #2: MLS 1250570

Turner and I have put a bit of energy into researching the real estate in Nakusp and environs. Aside from the fact that most of the sellers in that area are smoking WAY too much pot and obviously unaware that they're seven hours from a serious airport and three hours from a Home Depot (1.5 hrs to sushi, for pete's sake), Nakusp would be a great place to spend a few years while Sloane and any siblings are young. Rural BC isn't the kind of place you'd want to spend your high school years, but for early childhood it would be great. Close to Mum and Mike, good winters with lots of snow, interesting folks hiding in the woods... it's somewhere we've put a lot of thought into. But like I say - the prices. They're stupid. The one house we were looking at back in June, the one with the asbestos shingles, the humungous octopus furnace that requires replacing (insurance-regulated), and only one long, low-ceilinged bedroom along the whole top floor... it was $92,000 then, and had been on the market for six months. It wasn't selling, and our trusty Nakusp real estate agent Ron Balske made it clear that the guy wouldn't entertain any offers below his asking price (lots of people had apparently tried offering what the house was worth - between $60 - 80K, and the seller would tell them to get bent). Then, finally, in July, there was an offer on the place but the buyer's credit fell through. And the house went back on the market... at $109,000.

Because, you know, if you can almost get $92,000 for your asbestos-shingled craphole, surely you can get $109,000. There's a place up above town, the old dairy farm of the area. Turner and I love that place. We'd move there in a second. Judging from the size of the property and the dwellings and such and so on, it should be worth about $290,000. The guy wants $399K, not a penny less. Uh, okay.  

In any case, researching the mls is a lovely way to daydream, not to mention a method of getting to know the area you're visiting, and gathering ideas and savvy for future real estate dealings. We looked at lots of houses today, just driving by real slow-like, and got a feel for the area. But the two cheapest places were a curiosity - why so cheap? Firetraps? Murder scenes? Vermin infestations? What? So we left Sloane with her grandparents and drove out to Trecadie to take a gander at both places.

Now, House #1 was your basic hovel. Boarded up, rotten ceiling, water isn't good, the septic needs replacing, etc. etc. It looked like something out of a Patrick Kavanagh book. But still - the view was nice, I'll give it that. And there was a big barn. And come on, $55,000. You'd have to tear the house down and rebuild from scratch, but it was six lovely acres with a beautiful ocean view. Not for us, but some nice German couple will buy it eventually and enjoy it very much.

House #2 was something else entirely. We drove up and the people renting the place were out in the yard. Lisa invited us in to look around and Turner and I were both CHARMED, to say the least. Grassy lane down to the ocean just a minute down the way. Front porch, back porch. It says on the mls that it's 687sq.ft. but it's clearly bigger than that. Turner could totally work in the "shop" (the second house, the one on the right) with only a minimum of upgrading (insultation), a perfect place to finish a novel someone has been working on for the last seven years, hmmmm? It needs wiring work, and apparently it's a windy spot in winter. And I won't lie to you, it wasn't in exactly pristine condition. But hot damn, coming off the Calgary real estate market, we were floored: this was a SUPERBO deal for $62,000.

Unfortunately, it's sold. Conditionally. Apparently the buyer's financing might fall through.  

We were very quiet on the way back to town. Thinking. You know - thinking.

Rural Nova Scotia might not be a bad place for a year or two...?  

Categories: House

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Lordy, My Front Teeth For A Good Photo Upload Program

More than 400 photos and nine days later, the Ontario portion of our summer vacation is going splendidly. We're fresh off Thab and Phet's superbo Countryside Weekend Party out in Howdenvale, where I discovered the joys of swimming in Lake Huron, seemingly the only big body of water in Canada that isn't a) polluted, b) salty, or c) FREEEEEZING cold. Actually, I don't know about the pollution-o-meter for Lake Huron, but our friends have gone there every summer since childhood and still have the correct number of digits and seemingly all their brain cells, so we chanced it. I'm a convert: hip hip hooorrrah for Sauble Beach.

Previously in the week we started off in Arnprior with Sister Ains, then to Aylmer for Family Barbeque Sunday, then to Kingston to visit Cousins Jana n' Jay, and then to Barrie to stay with the Nazeralis. Lovely, lovely visits, all. I'm going to avalanche the site with photos once we're in Nova Scotia; our flight is tomorrow afternoon, where we'll be met by Grampa John and Gramma Margo.

Categories: Canadiana | Friends

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Birth Story: Part The Eleventh (The Denoement)

They took the baby over to a glass-sided table off to our right. Turner went to be with her and later he told me that as soon as he started speaking, she turned and looked right at him, ignoring the three doctors suctioning her stomach and poking her arms and legs.  

I lay on the OR table for a long time, half an hour or more, as the obstetrician repaired the layers of tissue he cut for the episiotomy. I just sort of sat there, and I'll admit that I wasn't able to fully ken the fact that the pregnancy was over, and the baby was finally here. I looked over at the baby, waving her arms and legs, watching the doctors crouched over her. She was clearly okay, the mood in the room was light and business-as-usual, although because of the meconium in the endometrial fluid she was needing to be suctioned – a routine procedure. I remember having a moment where my rational brain said to me: That is your baby over there, that’s your girl. That’s the one you’ve been growing inside you since last summer. There was one thunderous moment of true realization, but then a haze descended. I couldn’t, actually, believe it. Everything seemed sort of half-real and gauze-encrusted.

Eventually they took the baby off to the nursery to get a Vitamin K shot and the basic gamut of post-birth twenty-first-century preventatives and wonders given to all newborns in Canada, and Turner went with her. When they finished sewing me up, I was wheeled to Recovery, I lay there in the bed by myself. The nurses came around every so often, but I remember a lot of time just looking around at the curtain beside the bed and the cupboards and sink across from me, alone. I wasn’t bored, and I wasn’t worried about the baby. My rational mind could tell that I was out of it. I remember being incredibly thirsty, and asking the nurse if I could have some water. But because I was frozen all the way up to my chest I think they were worried that I might choke and not be able to cough properly. So there was no water forthcoming, though I asked for it every five minutes or so – I was so thirsty, I couldn’t help but keep asking.

Finally Turner came in with the baby, now all wrapped in a hospital blanket and with a tufted hat on her head, her eyes all swimmy and shiny from the erythromycin drops. I don’t remember much of this next bit; just that I was afraid to drop her, because I didn’t have complete control over my arms. And I was all disoriented and unable to talk very well – I was scared that Turner wouldn’t understand me and try to put her on my chest (we’d talked ahead of time about how we wanted her to breastfeed as soon as possible after the birth) and then let go. I couldn’t get a good grip with my hands because of the lingering anaesthetic and I was afraid I’d let the baby drop. But Turner seemed to understand and eventually we got her propped up and put my nipple in her mouth like they tell you to do. She didn’t get a very good latch but we were okay with that – good enough to try, and get her used to my smell.

I knew that lots of time had passed since the birth, and I really really wanted to see my mom. She’d been such an incredible, incomparable superstar through the whole labour and suddenly I was a mom, too – I wanted to see her and touch her hair and tell her how much I loved her. They made me wait in Recovery until I could move my legs a bit on my own, and then I was wheeled out into the unrestricted area of the hospital. I don’t specifically remember going to the maternity ward, though I know they pushed me on a stretcher because there are photographs of my arrival, taken by Brother John. And I got to see my parents, and my brother, and Turner was there, and everyone was just so great and looking terrible and exhausted – Turner and my family had been through the whole thing with me, hour by hour. Everyone looked a wreck, but really happy. From the pictures of myself, arriving on the maternity ward, I see I was no different.

They brought the baby to my room in a topless acrylic container, a sort of box with low sides near her feet. It sat on a trolley next to the bed. Once I was settled my parents and Brother John left, and I wouldn’t see them until the next morning. Turner was allowed to stay until midnight, so we set up in the room and just cuddled in the bed, talking about everything that had happened. And somewhere in the midst of everything, the nurses just backed off, and they just sort of left us alone, us and the baby. Night had fallen outside and at some point it had dumped a bunch of snow. When we’d arrived at the hospital the night before it was very spring-like in Calgary and the grass was showing through everywhere. But it had squalled all day and now we looked out onto a winter wonderland of new snow half a foot deep all along the hospital rooftops. The sky was pink with reflected streetlights. And Turner and I just sat there together, looking at the sleeping baby and leaning on each other.

Finally at some point, a nurse asked me if I wanted something to eat and they brought me a tuna sandwich and a carton of milk. And I exaggerate not in the least when I say it was THE BEST TUNA SANDWICH AND CARTON OF MILK EVER TO BE PUT ON THIS EARTH. I had no idea I was so hungry until I’d gulped up all the milk and rar!rar!rar!ed down the whole sandwich and was considering stuffing the saran wrapping into my mouth. Turner then went and got a burger from the hospital cafeteria and I ate half of that, plus some iced tea. Later, a few hours after he’d left for the night, I went to the maternity ward fridge and took an egg salad and another tuna sandwich and another carton of milk. I’d eaten all that by 7am the next morning when Turner arrived, and was certainly ready for breakfast when they brought it in on a tray at 8am. I guess having a kid takes a bit out of you.

So that’s kind of it. There’s so much more to tell, but it gets kind of mixy and out of order in my brain, and I really think I’ve said my piece at this point. I’m going to go through the birth story postings and add things here and there, and eventually post it on the sidebar as a story on its own page. But until then, that’s it from the becoming-a-momma point of view. Sort of a sudden dismount, but it actually mimics well the rather unceremonious realization that you are no longer pregnant and are suddenly faced with parenthood and everything that comes with it: no fancy ending, no actual final chord, just a sort of pick up the pieces and doing your best as you hit the ground running, suddenly parents.

As a final thought, I'll tell you right now that the recovery from the episiotomy SUCKED, but I won't get into the details. I do recommend the sitz baths and using a hair drier, by turns. Wet-dry-wet-dry-wet-dry heals stuff up much faster than the stoooopid ice packs they recommend. But that's all I'll say.

So... I know it took a long time to get it all up, and I know it's spotty in parts, incomplete, and gory. But I hope you enjoyed the story – let me know what you thought of the whole shebang.

Categories: Mom-ness

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Tomorrow You Can Come Steal The Plants and Crappy Curtains, 'Cause We're Outta Here

...Though Brother John is standing guard while we're away, so you'll have to go through him. And I'd put my money on our neighbour Cheryle to conk you on the head with one of the bats we keep by the door - beware, she has a key and isn't afraid to use it to come kick your ass. So get your hands off our Canadian Tire dishes!

In any event, early tomorrow morning we head east for our summer "holidays". We're both working while we're away, but when you're on the road it's hollie-day, sez us, and we're gunna suck the juice out of every single minute of it.

So first off, upon arrival in Toronto, Turner'll be heading to the woods with the boys to get lickered and talk about riting all weekend. Me and Sloane, we're catching a connector to Ottawa to spend a few days with Ains and to see the Aylmer crew. Then it's on to Kingston to see Jana at the lake, and then to Barrie to visit with the Nazeralis. While I'm doing the whirlwind tour, Turner'll spend the weekdays in meetings in smoggy ol' T-dot and getting his summer fill of Swatow, a pleasure which my schedule cannot accommodate, alas. Next-next weekend Turner and Sloane and I head to the Countryside Party up at Thab and Phet's in Howdenvale (I have my Mrs. Hilksom costume all set to go), and after that we zoom to Nova Scotia for a few weeks with Turner's parents John and Margo at their new house in Antigonish. On the way back west we have a weekend in Toronto to attend Bauer and Karen's wedding, after which we're hosting a wee open house for our Toronto pals to meet the Sloanester. And finally we catch our flight back to Calgary on September 5th.

Gone for a month and cramming in as much family and friends as humanly possible. As cousin Vik would say: Booya!

Categories: Family | Friends | House | Married Life

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Birth Story: Part The Tenth (Out She Comes!)

Please read the Disclaimer, and the previous chapters (in the archives, starting at the end of June).

I don't remember how long we had to wait for the OR prep, but after the obstetrician left, the nurses cleared out and I was told to rest. Brother John sat at the end of the bed and rubbed my feet and legs for a long time. I reached for the orange juice and it was snatched away by someone wandering through the room to check my IV - apparently you're not allowed to have any fluids in your system when you go into the OR in case you have to be put under general anaesthetic. I hit the epidural button a couple of times, poink-poink-poink, hoping to render myself completely and solidly numb in preparation for the now-inevitable episiotomy. And finally, what seemed like an age later (though it was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes), they came to get us. Everyone walked along the hall while I was wheeled on the stretcher, and we stopped at a set of doors to be wished good luck and to take a few photos.

Turner was the only one allowed to attend the birth, so everyone else was going to head to a waiting room. Turner and I were nervous, and not really looking forward to the whole operating room setting and what might become of me and the baby therein. But Mom leaned down and said, "I know you're about to go into the OR and it all seems rather dramatic. But everything's going to be fine. And when you come out of there, you're going to be parents! It's going to be wonderful!" It was excellent timing on this comment - it brought home that baseline reality: all we wanted in the end was a healthy baby, and in that respect, everything was still going A-OK.

Then I was wheeled to the OR, with Turner to follow along later. They prepped me, placing my feet in stirrups above the table and focussing the lights. There were a lot of people in the room - at least three nurses, the obstetrician, a new anaesthetist, three postnatal specialists standing by, the ambulance intern who'd done my bladder catheter, and a half dozen others who were wandering around purposefully but with no discernable role. In general I was a bit dazed, very probably from the wallop of epidural juice I gave myself via the self-administration button (laced, remember, with the Phenobarbital, a pretty serious diazapine), not to mention the preceeding 19 hours of labour.

Plus I had formally requested permission, and was granted same, to wear earplugs during the OR delivery. I really didn't want to hear people discussing the procedure as though I wasn't there, or as though I couldn't hear them. And I'd been through enough surgery (and long ago dated a meds student who told bizarre stories involving OR ghetto blasters playing AC/DC and terribly unkind comments about people's chances of surviving the procedure even while they were conscious and able to hear, etc.) to know what goes down in the OR. You're just the subject on the table, and not really a real person to the people working around you. I knew it was better to be as focussed on myself as possible, and block out all unnecessary noise. So I put in one earplug, and pushed the un-earplugged ear against my shoulder to block out sound whenever I didn't want to be involved.

I think they switched the medication in my epidural catheter, because I remember that suddenly the anaesthetic wasn't providing a complete block on my right leg. In the penultimate moments before the delivery began I grabbed the OR anaesthetist by the sleeve and said, Please: my right leg isn't frozen. I knew the episiotomy was coming and not on your life did I want to feel that. When lower doses of anaesthetic are used on any part of your body, it knocks out the pain but you can still feel the pressure. I didn't even want to feel the pressure. I didn't want that sense-memory of scissors cutting through that part of my body, I really didn't. And really, can you blame me?

So: Please, I can still feel my right leg, please give me more anaesthetic. In fact, I asked twice. And so he must've been like, Okey-dokey, Ashley, you asked for it. I'm sure he plunged the absolute maximum dose of anaesthetic into my catheter, because yep, after that, I couldn't feel a thing from my chest down, and I was decidedly less cogent, unable to really talk much or even take completely deep breaths.

They draped me with a cloth and the result was a total sight block of everything from my mid-torso and down. I couldn't even see the obstetrician. Turner was on my right, sitting at my shoulder. He had this funny blue hospital shower cap on that made him look like a British soap opera housewife. But then, looking back at the pictures, I see that I too was wearing one of those caps (I don't remember them putting it on me), so maybe I shouldn't laugh.

And suddenly, we were in the thick of it. They fitted the foreceps around the baby's head - I heard the clink as they were bring prepared and a shifting sensation when they put them inside me. They waited for a contraction, and then they told me to push. I don't think my pushing really helped much, but I suppose it's so you can feel part of the process, and so you're not unintentionally hindering the baby's departure. So Turner held my hand, and I pushed as hard as I fricken could. I couldn't feel the contractions at all anymore, and I couldn't even tell if I was tensing the right muscles. But I put every bit of will into finding the memory of where to push, and I held my breath and beared down.

On the first contraction the obstetrician brought the baby down to the opening of my vagina, and I guess it was clear they'd be able to get it out, good news. Turner could hear the doctors talking so he stood up to get a better look at what was happening, and saw the baby crowning. "It's going to be okay, Ash - they're going to be able to get it out with the foreceps." Good, I thought. Good. The baby will be fine. I'll be fine. It's going to be okay. I sure didn't want the c-section.

Then the doctor did the episiotomy. I think I heard the scissors, though maybe that's just the culmination of years of anticipatory anxiety retroactively creating a memory. But I thought it sounded like meat being cut - which, I suppose, was exactly what was happening. I certainly remember the change in pressure, like there was suddenly a lot more room down there. Which, again, was absolutely the case.

As the next contraction approached, the doctor told me he was going to try to bring the baby out with this one, and asked me to push as hard as I possibly could. As the contraction crested he said, Okay Ashley, now! I pushed and he pulled - and lordy did he pull. He pulled and pulled and pulled. I felt my shoulders sliding over the smooth surface of the operating platform, down towards my feet. It felt like he must've had one foot up on the table to brace himself, he was yanking so hard. It was like having a tooth pulled, a stubborn one.

But slowly, slowly, there was a definite and undeniable feeling of give. And slowly, slowly, out came the head, encased in the metal clamps. They unhooked the foreceps, and on the next push the doctor pulled the baby's shoulders free and the whole being tumbled out into the world. 

I heard the doctor say, "A girl." Turner leaned down to me, "It's a girl, Ash". He was crying. I heard the hitch in his voice, the liquid in his throat. The baby didn't cry, but I could hear her making little grunts as they carried her to a table off to one side to have her stomach suctioned of meconium.

And I heard a nurse call the time of the birth: 14:37. What a weirdly random number, I remember thinking. I have to hang onto that number, in case she ever wants to get a really accurate Indian astrological chart done. These sorts of ideas just arrive unbidden in the midst of all the craziness and drama of birth, and that's what I thought when they called the time: that this girl might someday want her horoscope cast and she'd need the exact time of birth. I've never had my chart done, and don't think I ever will. But whatever the possible future casting of star signs may hold for her, at exactly twenty three minutes to three pm on March 19^th, 2005, our daughter arrived in the world.

Categories: Mom-ness

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Birth Story: Part The Ninth (Ow My Perineum)

Coming down the home stretch here, folks... Part Nine in the five-part series telling the story of Sloane's birth continues with the latest installment. (To Erin in Toronto: hope your early July delivery was great!) Please be sure to read the Disclaimer, and the previous chapters (in the archives, starting at the end of June).

Mom started putting warm compresses on my perineum, to prepare it to stretch for the baby's exit. This is also after weeks and weeks of very unpleasant but disciplined perineal massage Turner helped me with. I really wanted to avoid an episiotomy - boy oh BOY did I want to avoid an episiotomy.

Because, like, you know what an episiotomy is, right? It's where they make an incision to widen the vagina. But let me just repeat that, since under normal circumstances it's a concept simply too monstrous to properly contemplate: They make an incision to widen the vagina. They cut your vagina. That's what an episiotomy is.

Many women experience tears in the vaginal wall during birth, and doctors will argue that the episiotomy prevents tears. Some tears are very serious, and the nature of a tear is that its trajectory is unpredictable (and thus could end up perforating the anus, setting up a really yucky situation in terms of contamination and infection, etc.). So preventing tears sounds like a good thing. Well, sure - except that with an episiotomy now you have a two-inch deep-tissue incision that, guaranteed, requires stitches and some serious recovery time.

I think I'd first heard of episiotomies in undergrad, while taking Nursing 205, a crosslisted Nursing/Women's Studies course at Queen's University. This class was officially called "Women's Health Issues", although a more appropriate title might have been "All The Things Men Have Done Over The Ages To Make Childbirth More Difficult And Painful For Women, Oh The Patriarchy".

Now don't get me wrong, I am totally not dissing this class. It was a great course, though topically it was very pregnancy-and-childbirth heavy (and understandably so, in retrospect). It was in this class that I saw a birth for the first time - on a video, but a birth nonetheless. And like many women in the class I broke down unexpectedly at the moment of the actual birth, like, Wow, was that ever messy and beautiful, and WOW, my body could do that! Pretty durn amazing.

But for all the amazingness of the fact of birth, and all the superlativeness of the Canadian health care system on this matter (as mentioned; pls. see "Epidural", above), you could really see the feminists' point about the whole notion of the episiotomy, a procedure which accounted for approximately three-quarters of all in-class discussion.

I won't bore you with the whole tirade and the historical details of how childbirth went from being attended and handled for millennia by women, to being a highly medicalized and patriarchy-marinated event (and it's been so long since I studied this stuff as a discipline that I know I'll miss some crucial point and get slammed by the foamers for dropping a major part of the argument, so I won't try). And I'm not going to deal with the fact that yes, modern medicine has resulted over the last century in the crash of maternal and infant mortality rates during childbirth, itself a great thing. Yes yes yes, I know all that, don't start throwing fruit.

However it's certainly an undisputable fact that routine episiotomies are often not necessary, and while they serve to speed up the birth, there is a very real possibility of tearing beyond the episiotomy incision. In any case the recovery from an episiotomy is very painful and often debilitating. And on the other hand, midwives, who have episiotomy rates only a tiny fraction of those of obstetricians, often use perineal massage and other techniques and manage to successfully deliver healthy infants lots of the time.

And before you flame me for THOSE comments, I'll tell you that there's plenty of clinical evidence to back up these points. So just settle down, out there. Birth is wrenching and violent and painful and in many very real ways dangerous to both mother and child. I'm not suggesting that every episiotomy is unnecessary and I'm not suggesting that with enough perineal massage any woman could give birth without tearing. But there are a few facts that should be put on the table, so there they are. (I do have the degree hanging on my wall, so it'd be a complete waste not to use it - especially concerning such appropriate subject matter, hmmm?)

Last summer a friend gave birth to her first child and in the subsequent months I asked repeatedly for details of the experience. Because, of course, I was pregnant and wanted to know what the hell I was in for. She wisely, and kindly, demurred. But I bugged and bothered, on and on, and finally she relented. She'd had a very hard birth. It was long, and complicated, and they'd wanted to give her a c-section and it was a terrible battle in more ways than one to have the baby vaginally, fighting the doctor all the way. In the end, this: "I'll never forget the sound the scissors made when they cut me."

Lord. That sentence rang in my brain every day of my pregnancy from then on.

So, yeah, for lots and lots of reasons, boy oh BOY did I want to avoid the episiotomy. I was all for Mom putting on the hot compresses - bring it on.

For the pushing stage itself, I was hoisted into pushing position with my feet braced up against the birthing bar over the bed, and during contractions I would haul my torso forward by pulling on a sheet they'd wrapped around the birthing bar. It's not the most flattering position to be in... and I'm testifying as someone who requested photos documenting every stage of the labour, so I know of which I speak on this one.

But this was pretty much the best part of the whole birth experience, for sure, no matter what it looked like. Suddenly you've actually got a specific job to do, and there's a very gratifying sense of participation and accomplishment that comes with pushing with the contractions. While I couldn't feel any actual pain because I was still mostly frozen from the epidural, I'd let the drip taper off a bit as the morning wore on so I could feel when the contractions were coming. Turner stood by the bed and counted while I pushed, helping me hold my breath to ten. At each contraction I'd do two or three long pushes, with only a huge heave of breath in between. Val and the nurse stood at the end of the bed, watching the goings-on between my legs. I got lots of lovely cheering and congratulations as the baby got closer and closer. I was absolutely focussed and pushing very very hard. It really felt like the most important thing I'd ever done.

...But the pushing stage went on and on. I made really good progress for the first fifteen minutes, but I pushed for probably two hours. It seemed the baby's head was just becoming increasingly cone-shaped, and not actually progressing down the birth canal. Although I was declared a very efficient pusher (at the time I was very proud of myself, indeed), the baby was just too big to fit.

Because it was increasingly apparent I wasn't going to be able to deliver the baby myself, the on-call obstetrician was brought in to discuss the interventional options at my disposal. He introduced himself (cheers!), took a look at the baby's progress, and sat at the end of the bed. He said I had two options.

1. Go for another half hour and see where the pushing got us. Or,

2. Head into the OR for a foreceps delivery with a caesarean as the backup plan.

Using foreceps necessitates an episiotomy, and I knew that, but asked anyway. (For the record, yes. Every time, foreceps = episiotomy.) A caesarean requires the removal of the baby through an incision in your lower abdomen. Either way, I was going to be cut.

In the grand scheme of things, I really really really didn't want either procedure. I wanted to keep pushing, but I knew I hadn't been making much progress for the last hour and a half. I asked the obstetrician what he thought. He said, "I wouldn't put it off. Go for the foreceps. I'm very good with them, and I've never had a complication." And you know, I believed him. He seemed really competent. Plus he'd introduced himself when he'd first walked in - my kind of medical professional. I looked around the room. At the back, my dad was standing there, shifting his weight back and forth, giving me a "do what the doctor says" head waggle. I looked at Turner, and at my mom. We all knew that I'd tried really, really hard.

I also knew there was a chance of haemorrhage if I exhausted my uterus, and by this point I'd been in labour more than 18 hours, pushing for the last two. If I decided to keep pushing and something drastic happened, it'd be a c-section for sure. So I acquiesced to the foreceps. I had to sign a release stating that if they got into the procedure but found they couldn't remove the baby vaginally, things would move immediately to a caesarean section.

Remember the "control, illusion of" thing I talked about above? ...Yeah. No control, you've got no control. Very little, anyway. In birth you just get coerced choices, so I made mine: Foreceps or c-section, madam? Well... when you put it that way, I'll take the episiotomy, please.

Categories: Mom-ness

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