LET’S GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT….

♫ Let's give them something to talk about
A little mystery to figure out
Let's give them something to talk about
How about love, love, love, love ♫





I’m not quite sure what Bonnie Raitt has to do with this, but the sentiment is appropriate ☺


So world… I’m a “MOM”. Yup that’s right. I officially got the job as “PARENT” at 5:17pm on April 29th. The #1-most important-yet-they-give-you-no-life-training-for-it job in the world… and I possess it. Jealous yet? You should be! You would think that given the seriousness of a job of this size, there would be a more intricate interview process, but after much research it seems that almost any one of us out there with the right ‘equipment’ are eligible for the position. Who knew ;p

It was quite the lead up to my little baby Veronica’s birth! If you’ve read any of my other blogs you’ll know I had been whining to friends and family and begging the ‘powers that be’ for an early delivery because I was kinda 'done' with that whole ‘pregnancy’ thing… and boy did someone listen! Now, I don’t know if it was my mom working some after-life magic for me, or whether I just married into the right family for it (my brother-in-law & his wife had their beautiful baby girl in December, and our labors pretty much mimicked each other), but whatever it was.... someone out there listened to my pleas and gave me my little girl over 2 weeks early!

You may see from my last blog posting that I was officially full term / 37 weeks on Sunday, April 25th, but not technically ‘due’ for my 40 week delivery on May 15th. (On a side note, I don’t know if you know this but they don’t start inducing labor until 10 days after your due date?? Ya.. Sucks.) Soooo, I was looking down the barrel at delivering somewhere between “any day now” and "a month from now”.

I posted some belly pix on Facebook on Monday the 26th showing off my ‘larger-than-a-bump’ baby bump, and on Tues had a doctors appointment and yet another ultrasound to double check baby’s positioning and my placenta. (This was ultrasound #5 if you count my two 3-D ultrasounds!) But better safe than sorry… if my placenta was in the way of baby’s head then that would mean automatic C-Section, but everything looked good… Baby V’s head was down and ready to go whenever she thought she could!

And it seemed she thought she ‘could’ the next morning, Wed April 27th around 6am. At least, that’s when my water broke. Now, only 7-10% of pregnancies start with a woman’s water breaking, so I wasn’t 100% sure that that was exactly what had happened… initially I had convinced myself that maybe I had lost control of my bladder (which also happens to a certain degree in pregnancies)… but by 9am when I tried to take the dogs out and had already changed my pants 4 times I was pretty sure that no one could have to pee that much in one morning. So I woke up Brad with the news. He was scheduled to work on set that day, so we carried on and I sent him off to work saying I’d fill him in as soon as I knew for sure. By noon, I had been to the doctor, picked Brad up from set and some mild cramping had started… my doctor confirmed that my water broke alright... and holy crap! I was going to be in full fledged labor within 24 hours!!

“But what about the application deadline you were on?” You might ask. “What about finishing the nursery?”… both good questions my detail oriented friends! ;p Well, I started mild labor early afternoon, finished the work for the application (which went out the door via FedEx on Friday finally, yay!) and the nursery is a work in progress... still! ☺

It's kinda funny the way that labour goes down. You think you have these 'plans' and you think that you've prepared yourself enough because you've taken these 'classes' and read 'the books', but you really don't know anything until you're IN it.

As I said, my water broke 6am on Wed, so my doctor scheduled me to be admitted into the hospital at 7am the next morning (April 29th) to induce me in case I didn't go into labour on my own. BUT, by Wed afternoon I was experiencing mild contractions, I went to my dad's in North Van to watch a movie with Brad, by 1am the contractions were manageable (but pretty damn bad by my standards), and by 3am I was on the phone with the hospital saying that 'I really needed to come in now for drugs'. Contractions were 8 mins apart and although they suggest you don't show up until they are between 3-5 mins apart, I was so uncomfortable & restless & overall scared at home that we went to the hospital.

Of course, they hook me up to all these crazy machines for 10 minutes, I don't have a single contraction the whole time, and now I just look like a big faker! Eventually I get my 'laughing gas' (which I puke everywhere and discover I HATE.) and a shot of morphine (which I also discover I hate..), and then FINALLY the God of all Gods comes in at 9am... the anesthesiologist!! My doctor checks me and I'm almost 4cm dilated...Ahhhh!!! it's time for my epidural :)

After the epidural, life is so SO grand :) I went from convulsing and crying and moaning all while hanging on to Brad's neck saying "I really don't think I can do this... I really don't think I can do this..." to giggling with my friends and family watching my monitor saying "Wow, that was a contraction??!!" By noon I was getting my girlfriend Christina to put some makeup on me so that I wouldn't look so haggard during my delivery!

Shortly after, the fun began. I started to show signs of 'pushing' around 12:30pm on Thurs. I was 8cm dilated (you're ready to go at 10cm) and baby V's head was dropped. They slowed me off of my drugs so that I could start to 'feel' where I was to be pushing, and it was heavy on my bladder and everything else below (but for the record, not nearly the same pain it was without the epidural!!) Still, "ugh". But then I started pushing and my doctors & nurses were like "hmmm.... can you stop pushing now?" And then they muttered a lot to each other and checked me some more and put me back on my drugs. (What?!) And then an hour later they checked everything again and were like "Ok, can you try pushing now?" and so I tried, then they were like "OK, ya don't."............... ?!?!?!? By this time I was getting pretty miserable because I had been up and doing this for over 30 hours. The next time they all came in they also called in the OBGYN surgeon on call, which is never a good thing. Within seconds after examining me, she said... "You're not going to like what I have to say...." and the whole room's energy dropped...

Gulp. "C-Section".

Apparently I was now only 9.5cm and should have been 10 by now. I was extremely swollen from all the pushing, but the baby's health was the major concern. Her head was pretty stuck in my pelvis because it was so swollen, (we found out later she was facing sideways & couldn't find her way down poor thing..) and her heart rate was beginning to stress, and that = emergency C-Section. They would have her out in 1/2 an hour.

So, Brad scrubbed in, my family got kicked out, they upped my drugs and got me all numb, and I got to hold my beautiful baby Veronica shortly after 5:17pm that day... April 29th!

IN SUMMARY!! (This is the Cole's Notes version of what happened...) I went into labor 3 days after I was 37 weeks (full term)— I was in labour for 35 hours and then after all of that, had to have an emergency C-Section due to complications with the positioning of the baby. I could have just scheduled that damn surgery and skipped that whole awful labour thing altogether!! **Sigh**

Anywhoooo.... the rest is a blur! Recovery for C-Section is 6 weeks, but I'm up and attem' and feeling really good actually. My baby is amazing, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a mom. There is very little else I've experienced in life that is better than this... (the closest I can compare is raising my puppies ;p) But life is so fun and so much better with little V here, and having my little girl OUTSIDE my belly instead of INSIDE is WAY better!!

For those of you walking the "should we / shouldn't we" decision line, I STRONGLY suggest you SHOULD have a baby. They are far too cute to not have in your life, and if you know me, you know I haven't been this way until now!! I seriously cry tears of happiness almost every time I look at her. I am so in love with my little girl.

xoxo N

My new favorite quote that I got for mommy's day...

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh