I Survived!

One year later with only a few fights and meltdowns, numerous diapers and a ridiculous amount of feedings and one fever and we survived. Today Max turns ONE!!

To Celebrate this wonderful occasion I want to take a trip down memory lane. Where were we one year ago yesterday and today.

On Sunday June 6th, 2010 we had Grandmaman, Chantale, Noah, Zach, Grandma, and Grandpa over for dinner. I had been feeling very yucky all weekend; tired and sick. Just before dinner was to start I spent some time lying on the couch with my feet up. When dinner was ready I went to the table and grandma told me I looked really flushed. She then put her hand on my big belly and said she felt a contraction. I never went into proper labour with Annabelle so I didn’t really know what to expect. When Grandma told me I was having a contraction I then started counting them and timing the time between. The so-called contractions were tiny, didn’t hurt, and were not consistent so I thought it was a false alarm.
After everyone left (except Grandmaman as she was staying with us) I decided to go to bed just in case it was the real thing. When I was in bed, I had a very distinct “pain” in my belly. Daddy came to bed and I decided to go downstairs and wait it out while watching TV. At this point it still didn’t feel like much as the pains stopped when I was walking around. Daddy and Grandmaman came downstairs and insisted that I should go stay at grandma’s house because she lived close to the hospital. I reluctantly agreed and when I got up from the chair I had a lot of pain. While I was packing my bags (and making the bed, hehe) I decided that the pain was strong enough that I needed to go straight to the hospital instead of grandma’s house.
When we got in the car it was clear that the pains I was having were definitely contractions. They were 2 minutes apart and very painful. We had a 40 minute drive to the hospital and Daddy was very nervous that he was going to have to deliver you on the side of the highway so he was driving mighty fast. Every contraction I screamed in pain and daddy drove faster so I had to try and be quiet. It was now after 11pm and luckily there wasn’t any traffic. If any cars got in our way, Daddy flashed his lights at them to get out of the way. When we got to the hospital, daddy dropped me off at the door and went to park the car. As I sat in a wheelchair at the door, people saw me and were very concerned that I was not ok but I was fine, just very much in labour!
Daddy wheeled my chair up to labour and delivery and we checked in. I had a hard time talking as my contractions were now a minute apart and daddy was very flustered. We went into the triage room and the nurse checked me to discover that I was only 4 cm dilated and my water had not broken…until 2 minutes after that when it did. They immediately moved me into the delivery room where we met our nurse for the night, Anita.
Anita was great. I was in a lot of pain and really wanted an epidural. While we were waiting, I was given laughing gas to take off the edge and while it didn’t make the pain go away it gave me a sense of humour. I was able to joke and laugh between the painful contractions. However, it was also yucky and made me very sick. When the woman came to give me the epidural, Anita wanted to check to see if I had dilated anymore first. I was afraid she would tell me it was too late for the epidural so I wouldn’t let her check me until after. She reluctantly agreed and after the epidural she checked and I was 8 cm. (As I thought, she wouldn’t have given me the epidural had we known this). After I got the epidural, the contractions were still very strong and painful. The pain changed into a throbbing pain in my crotch that wasn’t going away every 2 minutes like the pain from the contractions. Anita checked and I was ready to give birth to you. She said I could wait for the epidural to kick in but the quickest way to end the pain was just get you out! So with that I pushed for what I remember to be maybe 5 minutes or 2 pushes and you were born at 1:22am (about an hour and a half from arriving at the hospital and 3.5 from my first contraction). You cried a beautiful cry and so began our amazing journey together on June 7th, 2010.

To celebrate that wonderful day we had an wonderful birthday BBQ with our friends and family. However, Given that Max has been sleeping well he needed to remind me of who he is and how he is special. So a day before his party he got his first fever and was sick with vomitting and diarreha for the next 3 days. then the night before his actual first birthday he was up from about 2am to 6am.

Regardless, he is cute as a button and I am totally in love.