With Mother's Day around the corner, I thought it was a good time to share the story about the day I became a mom. 🌹
The story starts almost two days earlier at 3 am on June 29 when I woke up to my water breaking. Up to that moment, I had never seen my husband move so fast as when I made the announcement that my water was breaking and therefore the baby must be coming. As I stood in the en-suite over a bidet (this was my husband's grandparents house), reality setting in for us both, I announced I was definitely getting an epidural, while Mike announced there was no way he was catching the baby. We called our midwife and because there were no contractions to accompany this event, we went back to bed.
Hours later, we woke to a beautiful Saturday and still no contractions. I went to an acupuncture appointment in an attempt to start labour and nothing. Later that afternoon we then attended a one year old's birthday and still nothing. That evening they called us into the hospital to see what was going on, gave me a recipe for some concoction to start labour and sent me home. The next morning, I mixed said concoction and still nothing. Mid morning the hospital finally called and said, okay, it's been as long as we can let you go after your water breaks, come in and we will induce you. Now, I'm not sure if it was the early morning drink, or the realization of "oh shit, this is for real" that suddenly caused the labor to start.
By the time we got to the hospital, contractions were happening with greater intensity and frequency. I felt like I was managing and things were progressing as they should. As this point I was a few cm dilated, still a ways to go, but doing alright. When the OB came to check me out, he decided that this wasn't good enough and that he needed to move things along, so he hooked me up to oxytocin. I remember the hesitation by my midwide and doula, but no one objected to the doctor and so it began. One hour of the most intense contractions coming one after the other with no breaks. I went from managing, to coping, to being in such extreme pain I wanted to crawl out of my body. The option of an epidural was given to me, and if you recall from my statement above, I was on board. It's amazing how quickly it worked, however, they neglected to see how dilated I was and surprise surprise, in that hour I became fully dilated, but now that I was drugged up I had to wait. At 9 pm, still with little to no feeling from my boobs down, I started to push. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed. I was in every position you could possibly imagine trying to get this baby out.
Finally, three hours later, and at the stroke of midnight Andreas Tyler Alder Morellato, weighing 8 lbs and 4 oz entered the world and filled my heart with more love than I ever knew possible. I remember looking at him, thinking you are the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. You aren't like any other baby, all swollen and wrinkly, you are perfect.
As I held him for the first time, I heard the nurses in the other room singing Oh, Canada and the midwife asked me to confirm his birthday, June 30 or July 1. She did this because my brother died on July 1 seven years earlier, at midnight when he was hit by a drunk driver. We acknowledged the events of the past 2 days and how Andreas waited until midnight to make an appearance and we gave him his rightful birthday, July 1, 2013.
When I look back at the pictures of his birth, he is a swollen, wrinkly baby that really looks the same as all the other babies, but in that moment, and still today, there is truly nothing more beautiful than him....and now his brother Theo. ❤️