Baboo's Story

On this day, 2 years ago I woke up with Hubster’s alarm at 6:30 and KNEW I was in labour, finally, but I didn’t say anything because this wasn’t the first morning I woke up and THOUGHT I was in labour.

I stayed in bed for just a short while, but I got uncomfortable pretty quickly, so I got up. Hubster asked me if everything was ok, to which I replied I was fine. Then, very carefully, he asked if he should stay home and very firmly, I said “No. IF anything happens I’ll call you”.

To say that I had been prickly at the end of my pregnancy would be an understatement. I was a bitch with a capital B. I was HUGE, cranky, uncomfortable and DONE being pregnant. I was 2 cm dilated for 2 weeks, having steady contractions for days with nothing happening and a bunch of people WAITING for something to happen. The day before my labour really started, I finally gave up “waiting” expectantly for labour to pick up and said loudly “I don’t CARE if I have this baby in the SUPERMARKET” put Mouse, almost 3, in the stroller and walked about 2 miles to an outdoor playgroup in the beautiful spring-like weather. I distinctly remember my parents, who had come the week before thinking that I’d have the baby any minute, watching me from my front step, admonishing me to be careful and to have the cell phone ON as I waddled my pregnant self down the street.

That night, after a lovely day outside, going shoe shopping and whining with my mother, I realized that my baby wasn’t in the right position. I could FEEL the head banging against my right hip. So I got down on my hands and knees with my enormous belly resting on my big purple exercise ball and I rocked and rolled for hours while I watched tv. I was hoping to get my baby to get into the right position… and it worked.

So, back to birth-day: I went downstairs and started to get some breakfast. The contractions were noticeable and pretty steady, but again, I wasn’t going to admit to anyone that THIS time, I really knew that this was it. I figured we had plenty of time. As I was making breakfast, I would have to stop a bit for a contraction. They were not painful, but getting a stronger. As I sat to eat, my parents asked “So, is something going on?” and again I replied “I’ll tell you when I know” because I was so afraid to say anything out loud only to have the contractions peter out to nothing. AGAIN.

A few days before I’d also woken up in, what I thought, was labour. The contractions were very regular, about 6 minutes apart. I’d gone down stairs and told everyone. Hubster still went to work, but we all kind of waited around for things to continue to pick up. And then… there was a shooting RIGHT in front of our house, the whole street was closed off and there were police everywhere. My Dad went out to tell the cops that I might be in labour and asked what we needed to do to leave the house (and they offered a police escort… good grief!), but under all that pressure and fear my contractions died out pretty quickly.

So I labored for a while at home, on March 15, 2007. I knew my parents KNEW that this was it, even though I hadn’t said anything. They started to quietly make plans and get things ready. They left me alone mostly. I’d gone upstairs to get dressed and start getting ready myself when the contractions really started to get stronger. My Mum suggested that we call Hubster so that he had time to get home. This was her way of saying, “it’s time, we need to get cracking”. So I called him to tell him to come home. He’d JUST gotten to work, it wasn’t even 9 am yet and had just missed the train home. He said he’d catch the next train and was home for about 10.

Meanwhile, Mouse was starting to ask a lot of questions. “Mommy, are you going to have the baby TODAY?” “Mommy, are you ok?” “Mommy, why are you stopping?” I was really trying to be nice and answer her questions without alarming her, but the contractions were strong and it was hard for me to focus. I wasn’t hurting, but I definitely had to stop and work through it. My Dad offered to take Mouse to the park as it was a beautiful day and said he’d stay there until we called him.

With Mouse gone, there was just Mum and I and Hubster was on his way home. Mum said “I think we should start getting ready to go” and I agreed. We got the food ready, the bags and then I started to clean. I figured I had HOURS of labour left. When I was in labour with Mouse, I had HUGE contractions for hours and hours. I didn’t want to go to the birth center too early.

Hubster came home to bags by the door, and me sweeping the floor and making beds. I think he was a bit confused. He asked what he could “do” and I just said “nothing, we’re good”. I think he wasn’t sure what to do as I didn’t really seem “in labour”. I was up, walking around, just stopping, breathing and hanging on to counters, couches etc when a contraction hit and then moving on. I still wasn’t in pain and wasn’t really needing to work through the contractions very much. I still waiting for it to get harder.

While Hubster watched the end of a James Bond movie (he feels bad about this but there wasn’t much else for him to do), I decided that I MUST clean the fingerprints off the living room window and when I stopped for a big contraction, he said, “I’ve been timing these and you’re less than 5 minutes apart. When are you going to call the midwife?”

I got a bit angry and said I wasn’t going in too early and I’d wait a while longer. I really did think that I had hours left and kept waiting for the really HARD labour to start. He said “I’m giving you 15 minutes” and then you have to call. It was 11:30 am.

So, the contractions kept coming and he made me call. I talked to the midwife on call and explained what was going on and then I had a huge contraction. She said “Hmm, that was a big one. Are you ok?” I said yes that I felt fine. Then she said “I think you need to come in soon, when can you get here?” I told her that Mouse was at the park that I had to get her lunch and finish getting ready and said that it’d be about an hour or so. She replied “I think you need to get here sooner. Like, now-ish.” I trembled out an “ok”, hung up, and started to sob.

It was confirmed, I was going to have this baby TODAY. I could admit that this was IT.

Then I had an enormous contraction that left me clinging to the couch and starting to moan… generally a sign that things are moving pretty fast.

Hubster and Mum started racing around, getting things to the car and calling my Dad to tell him to come home NOW… which he interpreted to be “take your time”. When he didn’t show up, we drove by the park told them to follow us to the birth center “NOW!”

Sitting in the back seat of the car was TORTURE and really the only time I had felt “pain”. Our back seats kind of reclined a bit and I kept trying to hang on to the front passenger seat to pull myself forward. Every time Hubster accelerated or changed gear (we have manual transmission cars, usually) I would sob out… “STOP THAT! DON’T GO SO FAST. SLOW DOWN”. It was crummy. It took about 20 minutes to get to the birth center and 2 stop lights before the building, I felt a pop and a gush. I cried out “MY WATER JUST BROKE” and then Hubster sped through the next 2 lights to get us there. Thank goodness we put a towel under me when we left the house.

I could barely walk across the parking lot and when Mouse saw me soaking wet and sobbing, clinging onto Hubster and Mom she became HYSTERICAL. She didn’t have the chance to see me progressing through labour and thought I was dying. I wasn’t hurting really, it was just soooo intense that I felt like the only place for the overflow was through crying. I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to. So I tried to tell her I was ok that it was time to have the baby, but it didn’t help much. It was about 12:30 pm when we got there.

The midwife and nurse met us at the door, and said to me gently “Oh, I see some tears, I guess it’s a good thing you came in now” and took me into the bathroom. She and Hubster helped me get my soaking bottoms off and checked me while I was standing. She stood up, took off her glove and said “Well, you’re 9 cm and any time you want to push, just go right ahead. A few pushes and that baby is going to slide right out”.

I think I nearly fell over because I had NO idea I would be that far along. The whole time in the car, I was saying “we’re going in too early”. I think Hubster felt like he had bragging rights to being right. Ha.

So, I moved into the birth room, got to the end of the bed and felt like I had to push. I held on, squatted and started to push. The nurse was right behind me, Josh and everyone else was to the side. I knew I couldn’t stay there long as my feet felt like they were slipping. The midwife said “pushing on hands/knees is just like squatting, let’s try that.” So they helped me onto the bed and I started to push. I know at some point, Mouse found it too intense, and just before the baby crowned, my Mum took her out to get some lunch. Unfortunately she missed the birth, because the baby was born in just a few minutes. My midwife told me I pushed and breathed like a champ; she felt like she didn’t have to tell me to slow down, or to just push a little bit and to be honest, I could hear my doula training in my head telling me to do just that when the time came.

The baby slipped out and was put under me on a towel. I looked down and saw that it was a GIRL and I yelled “It’s a GIRL! ANOTHER GIRL”. I was stunned as I was sure it was going to be a boy because my pregnancy had been so different this time. And so Baboo was born at 12:50 pm. At 7 lbs 1 onz, she was only 2 onz smaller than Mouse at birth, but she looked so tiny and fragile and had skinny little bird arms.

We left the house at about 12 noon, had Baboo at 12:50 and were home by 6 pm - the earliest we could leave the birth center. We ordered a pizza, said hello to the neighbours and basked in the joy of a new baby and a fantastic birth. We went into the birth center in t-shirts with the warm sun on our backs and came home to cold, sleety rain.

Baboo was an easy baby; a champion nurser, a good sleeper and generally a happy baby. We braced ourselves for the colicy onslaught we had with Mouse, but it never came. Mouse adjusted to being a big sister and now they’re good friends… most of the time.

Baboo: I worried when I found out that I was pregnant that I couldn’t possibly love you as much as I loved Mouse, but oh, you have proved me wrong. You’ve shown me that my heart is capable of a love bigger than the universe.

You’re a totally different person than your sister, and yet I see a lot of her in you. Sometimes the way you tilt your head and say “wellll…” sounds exactly like her. You light up a room with your smile, and shatter our eardrums with your cry. There’s not a lot of gray area with you, you’re either happy or…. Not. You are your own independent little person – you like to do things yourself and figure things out yourself. While there are things you can’t do now that your sister did at this age, there are many things that you do that your sister did not do.

This has been a big year for you. You’re starting to use the potty, your vocabulary astounds me, and your comprehension of things knocks me out! You can put your own shoes on, do the “flip” with your coat and love to wear mittens and hats. You play really well with other kids, would eat chocolate until you puked and love to watch the birdies at the bird feeder outside. Swinging is one of your favourite things to do outside – and you come by that honestly. I love it too and so does your sister. You don’t really like to wear dresses, but feel special when you do and are most at home in a tshirt and comfy pants and you love your rubber boots.

You love your blankie and now your pillow and whatever your “special fwiend” is for the day. You drink more water than another other person I know. You aren’t interested in Sesame Street AT ALL, but love Curious George and anything Princess… much to my dismay.

In many ways, you seem so much more grown up that your sister did. There’s lots of baby things that you didn’t do because you were exposed to the “bigger and better” earlier by your sister. And you love nothing more than trying to keep up with Mouse. You adore her and I love nothing more than hearing you two shrieking with giggles when you play together.

Today, I look at you and I can barely remember the last 2 years. They’ve gone so fast. I look at pictures and think “is that really YOU?”, but I see your smiling face, and feel your little arms around me, hear you say “I wuv you Mama” and I know that you are here and you are real. I am blessed in more ways that I can count and I’m so happy that you’re here.

Happy Birthday, Baboo! My big 2 year old girl. I love you with all my heart and more.