It's been a while... but here we go...

Kneeling down, I pulled several pieces of grass from her fingers, as everything goes right into her mouth these last few weeks.

“Up Mommy, up!?” I say to her as she raises her little arms up and I nearly kill myself bending over to pick her up.

I squeeze Graye into her car seat… “Car car ride?? You wana go for a car car ride?” She giggles and then pulls her “Chris Farley face” which involves snorting with a big gummy smile. Toooo cute for words.

I hop into the drivers seat, pop in my iPod and where off! From our side Avenue we pull onto Main Street and cruise along, singing to the music. I slow down to a stop as we pull up to a red light… I turn my head slightly to the right and beside me at a bus stop stands a young man I know all too well.

Today he wears the same outfit I’ve seen him in for the last year. I’ve never officially met him in the time that we have been living in our new house, but I see him all of the time. He’s around 18 years old. His large frame fills out his baby blue Adias tracksuit in an uncomfortable way. On his feet, a pair of cheap running shoes two sizes too big for him. From his ears fall the tale tell white chords of IPod earphones. His shoulders are slumped with insecurity.

As I wait for the light to change I look him in the eyes and then wave hello. He stares right through me. The light changes, and I lurch past him, onto my destination. It’s been a while since I’ve thought of him, but when I do, I only feel sad.

Track back two months ago. The yellow house across the street from mine is where this young man spends his days. He lives with his father, mother and two sisters. It is not a happy home, and of this I am certain; it is most likely a horrible place to live. Last summer, many a day and night the street rang loud with the screams of a tyranny of a man, accompanied by loud Bollywood music for hours on end, drifting out all five of their open windows. The father lashed out in a language that is foreign to me, which made it all the more abrasive to listen to. Many times the neighbours have called the police about the abuse and nothing has even been done to fix the problem…

My baby was only four months old and was still sharing our bed with us. I was in the throws of getting her use to her own crib one night… a testy subject with a child that is use to having her mother and father at her side when night time falls. After hours of fussing she had finally settled. Any little sound might disturb her much needed sleep… AND ours.

I sat up in bed, my eyes cloudy and stinging as I tried to open them up. The baby was crying in her room. I waited a second to see if she would settle down on her own. Waiting, waiting… waiting…. Then I heard something else… or maybe it was the same thing that had woken me up? A mans voice broke the silence of our Tuesday night. His wails were racked with drunken agony and loneliness as he wandered the street out front of our home. It was all in a language I could not understand.

Most evenings when these sort of shenanigans happened I could let them go, but due to the fact that my child was truly in need of her sleep I was beyond angry when a full 20 minutes had passed and he was still writhing out front of his house across the street.

“THAT’S IT! I’m calling the police!” Zol roused from his slumber, telling me to not bother as I pushed off the duvet and fumbled for my slippers. I stumbled down the stairs and into the front room. Opening the window, the intoxicated yelps doubled in volume, and holding up my cell phone I dialed the non-emergency police number.

“Vancouver Police. What is the problem?” I explained the situation. She kept me on the line for five minutes till 2 police cars pulled up in front of our house. I watched as they dragged the man up the long staircase to his front door, his timid wife standing to the side with her head bowed. The police drove away, and the woman on the other end of the phone let me go. I trudged up the stairs and crawled back into bed, amazed that my baby hadn’t woken up yet from all of the turmoil… 2:45am… 2:55am… I sat straight up in bed again. What the??? Seriously??? He was outside again, but screaming this time.

“Fuck YOU my neighbour!! FUCK YOU!!!” over and over again he repeated the same sentence. “Fuck YOU my neighbour!! FUCK YOU!!! FUCK YOU!!!”

I rose from bed again and down into the living room where I peered out the open window, cell phone in hand. He was writhing on the front lawn of his house… and a woman stood beside him, pleading in her Indo language for him to stop. A cold wind picked up and blew the sari away from her body in loud gusts. She knelt beside him, softly touching his face and he violently pushed her away…

“Vancouver Police. What is the problem?”
“Ummm, ya I just called you guys about 30 minutes ago? Same house same problem…” I gave them the info and address…
“Mam, we’ve already removed the man that was causing the problem. He’s has been taken away to the drunk tank already.”
“Seriously? Are you sure?”
“Yes I’m sure. He’s been taken away.”
“OKaaaay…. Well then there’s ANOTHER guy doing the exact same thing at the exact same house.”

Five minutes later the police showed up again and took the second man away, painfully dragging him into the back of their car. They spoke to the woman briefly and then pulled away leaving her standing alone in the cold night.

The wind rushed up again and the streetlight threw an uneven glow over her body as her sari flapped abstractly behind her in the wind. I secretly watched her from my window for the full three minutes that she stood there alone. The wind rushed again, floating behind her as she turned and slowly went up the stairs to her now quiet home. I can’t imagine what the next day would entail for her… picking up not one, but TWO ugly, ugly men from the drunk tank…

The next morning I stood in my living room holding and bouncing my baby Graye while watching “The View”. Across the street the ‘house of horrors’ was in plain view as I listened to Whoopi Goldberg and Elisabeth Hasselbeck argue about woman’s’ rights… The front door opened across the street and the young man mentioned earlier stood in its wake. He adjusted his IPod earphones and pulled up the zipper of his baby blue tracksuit. He lumbered down the stairs and out of the front gate of his house, where he paused on the sidewalk. Pulling the IPod from his pocket, he changed the tune… waited until the new track started – and then began his daily walk. I would kill to know what song he chose to listen to that morning. What song could truly make the night before OK?

Track forward two months...
The light turns green, I put the van into 2nd gear… the bus stop and his vacant eyes are far behind me. There are only 30 feet between our lives on 55th Avenue, yet they are so amazingly far apart. I don’t know how I can help him change his horrible life - and sadly, I don’t know that I ever will try… *d

Ahhhh...Christmas! Part 1 - Decorating the Tree

Ahhh, the holiday season. Can you feel it? I walked into the Hudson’s Bay (Canadian department store) on November 1st to be greeted by soccer ball sized Christmas ordainments hung from garishly pre-lit artificial Christmas trees. A lame jazz version of ‘Deck the Halls’ was pumping out of the sound system. I could see the Christmas cheer and good will was already spreading like wild fire as I took nearly a whole minute to get my baby stroller through the heavy double doors, all the while being stared at by a 20-something year old guy on the other side of them. Maybe the iPod earphones not only impaired his hearing but also his vision and sense of chivalry.

“Excuse me…” I said sweetly to the Chinese couple that blocked the walkway into the store. They slowly turned and looked at me and then continued on with a conversation I couldn’t understand. “Excuse ME!” I said again. The woman moved barely a foot out of my way and I didn’t feel bad when my stroller wheel clipped her ankle. “Woops! Sorry!” I beetled my way through the men’s department and taking in as much air as my lungs could hold I held my breath all the way through the women’s cosmetics and perfume section. My eyes teared, as I said “No thank you!” in a high-pitched hold-your-breath kind of way to the three women that tried to spray me with this year’s latest scent. I wasn’t even here to do my Christmas shopping and already I felt the heaviness that often comes with Christmas for so many of us.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas - mostly just the decorating my own house part of it, but all in all I do enjoy it. However, with most things that we love there are also the things we dread. Here’s the beginning of a short list of some of those things…

#1. Decorating the tree:

OK, so hubby has pulled out the Christmas decoration boxes from storage, and on a nice cozy night I decide it’s time to put up the tree. Last year we bought an amazingly garish lime green artificial one, but in years past it’s always been a real tree. My husband and I have very ‘different’ ways of carrying out tasks and bringing the tree into the house and setting it up is just one of many. By the time Zol has the tree in the door the entire living room is completely covered in pine needles and the tree sap on the front door frame will never come off. In my hopes to keep the evening light and fun I say nothing, knowing that for the next week I’ll be sticking my foot with all of the missed needles that the 30-minute vacuuming session missed. Balancing the tree into the tree-holder is another task we disagree on as is using a saw inside the house to make the tree shorter (add sawdust to the 30 minute vacuuming). With the tree in place and ready to tip over at any minute, I begin to unpack the decorations. What goes on the tree first? You guessed it – the lights. Now I don’t know what the heck happens to my decoration box over the course of a year, but it never fails that my carefully wrapped up tree lights decide not to work when they are pulled out for the next Christmas season! The evening is now OVER as I can’t do anything until I have a set that actually works. Last year they actually did work, but they were permanently on the epilepsy inducing flash setting and hence completely useless.

The next day I buy a new light set and AGAIN that evening make an attempt at decorating the tree. There’s always a favorite decoration that’s been crushed into a million pieces of crazy sharp shards of glass. Several pieces of this lost treasure are later pulled from my foot in the next three days. I also somehow manage to lose the metal hooks that hang the decorations, and at least a half hour is lost to scouring the house for paperclips. With the tree up I sit back on the couch and admire my work. Now I don’t claim to be a master at tree decorating but I did learn from the best – my mother. A florist by trade, as far back as I can remember she could bang out an amazing tree every year. She taught me the proper steps to creating a beautiful exhibit, with the decorations perfectly hung and evenly dispersed - and for this, I am thankful. On a different note, I am often saddened by my husband’s response when I say “ Sweety! Come here! Soooooo…?! What do you think!??!” My arms splayed wide open, with a look on my face that only four year old has after creating an artistic masterpiece. He says, “Yah, looks good.” Oh well… can’t please them all.

The month of December carries on, and with a few missed waterings there is a halo of pine needles on the ground around the tree every other day. By December 25th the tree is a bona fide fire hazard and its lights are turned off if we need to leave the room for any extended period of time.

January 1st passes as does January 15th and finally I get enough energy to bring down the tree. I carefully wrap up the new Christmas lights knowing they’ll be useless next year and I’m pissed that I’m spending all of this time wrapping them up so delicately. With every decoration and string of lights that is pulled off the tree, 5000 needles fall to the floor. Finally naked, the tree is lugged out the door and for the next few months my socks find the needles that have AGAIN been missed in a thorough vacuuming.

But regardless I still love Christmas… it’s the same thrill and drill every year and I fall for it, going through the same motions, loving and hating them equally. But there are still a few things that get my goat during this Christmas season… so stay tuned!
Ps. do you have anything you love/hate about this season? Do tell! Leave a comment, as I love reading them! *dalyn
Pss. the pic of me in front of the tree is me all dressed up 50's style for a new years party that NOBODY else dressed up for. those are NOT my real breasts for the record, although now that i'm breastfeeding it's a pretty close resemblance of my body.

true love

It feels like your mouth does when you anticipate a piece of gum, but it covers your entire face. It starts in your nose, floods your mouth and eyes, then fills your brain with that tingle that makes your sight and nostrils water and run. I sing loudly along with the lyrics to The Dears and look down on my lap to see her smiling so sweetly up at me. My nose tingles and tears well into my eyes, but not enough to slide down my face… “Gooo! Ahhhh! Oooo! Oooo! Gaaaaahh!” she says… a chubby hand flails in the air and hits her own face. She ponders the pain, but smiles as I clap my hands to the music.

I think I have found a different and new meaning of love. I am now a mother… crazy… and SO IS MY MOMMY VOICE!!!

We're Havin' a Baby... Part Three!

A fog clouded my eyes. I blinked and blinked to clear them, but to no avail. I felt the sticky tape of the IV pulling on my arm. I looked down at my hands. Each digit looked like a chubby breakfast sausage and not one of them would bend at will. I turned my head to see Jess standing beside me, holding little Graye in his arms. Behind him Zol sat in the chair he’d earlier passed out in, smiling when he saw I was finally awake.

“How do you feel?” I felt FAT. HUGE. It was as if the Michelin Man or Pillsbury Doughboy had fathered me in some previous life. All I could see where my hands, arms and feet and I knew just from looking at them that the rest of my body was 3 times the size it normally was. Later, a picture of my face taken at the time proved it much to my dismay. Jess handed me the baby, and she nursed quietly.

The day carried on, with nurses coming in and out. My blood pressure was checked no less than 15 times over the course of the day. Zol and Jess left at some point to go clean up what Jess later called ‘a scene from an episode of the Sopranos’’ back at the house. I don’t remember much of what was said to me that day aside from the fact that I had a catheter and there would be no need to get up and pee (thank God!). My eyes remained blurry and I was lightheaded with any sudden I movement made.

For some strange reason, during my whole three-day long stay at the hospital, whenever food was brought in they placed it SO completely far out of reach I had to annoyingly buzz a nurse to come put it in front of me. By the time they got around to moving it within my grasp, much of it was cold and soggy.

That evening I was moved into another room, one with a window and thankfully a TV!! Zol came back after the clean up and we watched crappy shows and ogled our new daughter. He left later in the evening and I settled into what I thought would be the first ‘night of hell’ I’d heard so much about. Turns out this wasn’t the case as Graye would softly grunt and quietly squawk if she was hungry. Not the case with every other woman with child on that ward. They let ‘er rip ALL NIGHT LONG. I longed for my own house and bed as the woman next door to my room called her family in Russia at 4am two nights in a row. As to not wake her baby with her chatter she leaned against my doorway as she babbled away in Russian...

My teeth had the equivalent of a 70’s shag carpet on them by the next morning and I decided it was time to give them a good brushing. Moving and shifting around on the bed had been hard enough, but getting up? Yah, just a TAD more uncomfortable. Due to the whole giving birth thing and then the surgery, getting off the bed proved a bit more challenging than I had thought it would be, and getting back INTO the bed was even worse! Imagine me perched in saddle upon a horse – take the horse away… that was me trying to walk.

Later in the day my midwife Beth showed up and asked me if I had remembered anything she’d told me the day before. I had no recollection of even seeing her, so she retold me the news… the placenta had been removed successfully and without any damage done to my uterus. There was no known reason as to why it had not released. Retained placentas weren’t that common and nobody really knows why it happens. She told me to keep taking my stool softeners (that did NOTHING) and Tylenol and that she’d be back the next day to hopefully get me checked out of the hospital.

Thursday morning came and six hours of waiting finally had us released from the maternity ward. A million papers to go over… getting the baby into her car seat… yada yada the hospital drill… finally we walked out the door into an amazingly beautiful day. The sun was bright and hot and so was our van that had been parked in it for six steady hours. The seven speed bumps we went over to exit the parking lot reminded me that my body was still not yet my own. It felt like I had been kicked in the box to an extent I’d never imagined possible, but looking down at our wee little one, so small she needed to be wedged into her seat with rolled up diapers and blankets – I almost felt no pain.

We were going home – as a real FAMILY. Zol and myself were now connected for a lifetime whatever the winds may bring us… and that felt…. wonderful.

We're Havin' a Baby... Part Two!

Part Two of a story... read first part HERE.

Prenatal classes had informed me about having to push out the ‘afterbirth’ or placenta shortly after the baby came out. I had no idea what this entailed or what it looked like as it wasn’t something they’d shown on the 200 plus birthing TV shows I’d watched up to this point; in each episode baby would come out – cut to getting in the car going home scene.
A chill came over me as the water crossed over to the cool side of tepid. My body began to shake a little, Beth telling me that hormones were now flooding my body causing me to quiver. The baby was taken from my arms to get cleaned up and checked out.

“OK Dalyn let’s get this placenta out! Puuuuushhhhhhhh!” Beth pulled on the cord and the water went from clear to a deep shade of red. I lay there calmly, not knowing what to expect… What was normal in such situations? How long does it normally take to get these things out? Why is the water red? When can I hold my baby again? A few minutes passed with no result and I was pulled from the water, dried off and helped over to the bed we had set up in the living room. I lay there naked with a towel draped over me and they placed the baby at my breast. I looked down at her perfectly squishy face. Her mouth opened and took in my nipple… and she had her very first meal. Now, normally the baby staring to feed tells something in my body that its time to release the ol’ placenta, but for some unknown reason my uterus just wasn’t going to let it go. The midwife gave me a shot in the leg – oxy-something-or-other and minutes later I felt a surge within me… the contractions were staring again! They increased in length and then in pain, but still no afterbirth!
“OK Dalyn, were going to get you to stand up and push. Zol, you’re going to have to take the baby OK?” His face was stricken with the “But I don’t even know how to hold a baby!” look. Taking off his shirt he sat there on the couch, cradling our baby as I was lifted up to stand. Jess stood by my side, looking concerned. Beth pulled and pulled on the cord…. Nothing. More pulling… nothing. With blood dripping onto the pad below me Beth said, “Well Dalyn! The good news is your blood is clotting nicely!” I looked at Jess as she said this. Standing there naked, umbilical cord swinging between my legs I cracked a smile at Jess and gave him the two thumbs up signal. He smiled back nervously, returning my hand gesture. What better time for a little comedy?

A wave of exhaustion fell over me, and becoming dizzy I was laid back down. The painful contractions continued, but with nothing to show from them and with the clock ticking, Beth made an executive decision. We were going to the hospital. An ambulance would be arriving any minute to pick us up. Oh… OK. I hadn’t planned for this… I hadn’t planned for this at ALL. In my blind belief that nothing would send us to the hospital on the night of the birth, the personal bag for the baby and myself had not been packed. Jess raced about the house trying to put together what he thought might be useful for my stay there. Standing in the doorway, he held up a pair of 5 year old ‘period’ underwear that NOBODY was ever suppose to see (ladies, you know the ones I’m taking about!?). “Will these be OK? Do you wear these?” I nodded in embarrassment and he disappeared again to gather more things.

“The ambulance won’t have the siren on will it?” I asked desperately. A needle was being jabbed into my wrist for the second time, and an IV bag was then hooked up to it. Things began to happen quickly around me in preparation for the paramedic’s arrival. I heard footsteps on the staircase outside and looked up to see two men standing calmly in the doorway. Dizziness set in again…
Lifted into a sitting position, my head swelled with the heaviness of passing out… a dead weight inside your brain that you are unable to fight. Blind spots flashed in front of my eyes and my head bobbled in its fight to stay alert. They laid me down again.

A stretcher was brought in, a special one that was made for the sitting up position. Turns out that due to the big staircase out front I would have to be transported down the stairs in this ‘sit-up’ gig, and once down they would place me on the real stretcher, pop me into the ambulance and then speed off to the hospital. Sounds simple right? I suppose, so long as you haven’t lost a lot of blood and having painful contractions every few minutes. The paramedics lifted me up in their first attempt to place me in the seat. Never having passed out before I didn’t realize I was until the room went black before me within a matter of seconds. Back on the bed, lying down again, the dining room light came into view swinging above my head. Waiting until I’d gained full consciousness, they tried a second time and this is where everything just became a blur. I could hear metal clicking and clacking as they strapped me into the seat… my head was fizzy with lightheadedness, loose on it’s bearings and bouncing around like a bobble head doll. I felt myself being lifted up, and then tilted back in an attempt to get the blood back into my brain. A rush of cool air surrounded me and I saw the streetlight dancing through the trees. I heard footsteps going down the stairs… more clicking and clacking, I couldn’t stop my head from swaying side to side. At this moment something occurred to me. I could die. I could be dying right now… oh my god I had NOT planned for this! Then the weirdest thing happened. In a half awake state, my mind propelled itself into the middle of a dream – the kind you have when you are sleeping. I have no recollection now of what the dream was about, just that it was a short clip that had no beginning or end and made no sense at all. I felt my body laying flat now, blankets being wrapped around me. I opened my eyes to see an Indo woman in what I thought was a paramedic’s uniform looking down at me. She was saying something… everything went black. She was saying it again…

“Dalyn, Dalyn stay with me OK? It’s Beth, OK look at me… Dalyn, it’s me Beth!” I squinted my eyes but still only saw an Indo woman looking at me. I heard the sound of wheels on cement, the front gate clinking… it was so cold! Then LIGHTS! Big bright circles of light shone above me. I was in the ambulance now. A surge of pain rocked my body as my uterus contracted. “Good, good, you’re doing GREAT Dalyn.” Now I saw Beth beside me, her face shadowed from the blaring overhead lights. The ambulance began to swing back and forth as it traveled down what must have been the most potholed street in all of Vancouver! “So! The babies name, Graye… how do spell that?” I was confused by her question and a tad annoyed. You’re asking me how to spell my daughters name? “Ummm… G-R-A-Y---E… it’s… it’s a family name… OH GOD! IT HURTS!” I moaned and moaned my way through the contraction. Beth carried on with ‘light conversation’ all the way to the hospital. I realized later it was to keep me awake and coherent as my body was doing it’s best to pass out again.

Cue theme song to the show ER! Rolling down a sterile hallway, Beth at my side, people in scrubs passing by, long florescent lighting flashing above my head. Rolled into a room, another needle for another IV being poked into my arm, I came to as another contraction rolled through me. “Make it stop! PLEASE, just make it stop!” The events before me blurred again, doctors and nurses coming in and out. Then the familiar faces of Zol and Jess appeared, our baby swaddled in Zol’s arms. I smiled at him, his face racked with concern and confusion. Time moved slowly and after what seemed like an hour a doctor appeared at my side.

“OK Dalyn, bla bla, bla bla bla bla, OK? Bla bla bla and then bla bla bla and worst case scenario we will have to remove your uterus, alright?” I looked into his eyes and nodded, pushing out the words “OK”… I turned to see Zol’s face now ashen and white as a ghost from the doctor’s words. He handed off the baby to the midwife and leaning forward placed his head between his hands. Two seconds later his head lifted, his eyes rolled around like marbles and then back into his head. His body became limp and he slid off the chair and onto the ground beside me! Another contraction turned inside me as the nurse and midwife straighten him out on the ground…

I was being wheeled down another hallway… lights above me as we traveled to the operating room. What felt like 12 people surrounded me, their many conversations filtering in and out of my ears.

“OH PLEASE! Please, please… make it stop!” ANOTHER contraction! Still they spoke over me for what felt like half an hour. What the HELL was taking so long!??! Haven’t they done this before??? A nurse placed a plastic mask over my mouth. I couldn’t breath I couldn’t breath I couldn’t BREATH! “I CAN’T BREATH!” She released the mask a bit and I felt air in my lungs again… still the talking… KNOCK ME OUT!!! Oh SWEET jesus! Just KNOCK me OUT!!! My body began to shake uncontrollably… it shook and shook. A different mask was placed over my mouth… the room finally faded…

To be continued….!

We're havin' a baby... part one!

Returning to the kitchen from a trip to the bathroom, I stood at the sink barefoot and 8 months pregnant rinsing a few dishes. Zol had just come home from work, and as usual we chatted about the many idiots that had cut him off in traffic that day. As he ranted and raved I felt something strange happen ‘down below’.

Now I’m not sure if you have ever peed your pants, but my last recollection of doing so involved having to use the toilet madly and holding myself like a 5 year old for at least a half hour. I stood there staring at Zol, underwear wet, holding a dish in my hand.

“Ummm sweety? I - I think I just peed myself…” He looked at me blankly. “I JUST went to the bathroom! Weird…” It wasn’t enough pee to have it running down my leg, but a change of underwear was definitely in need. With a fresh pair on I continued with the dishes. A minute later my underwear was just as wet as before. I started laughing, as did Zol…

“Oh my GOD I’m PEEING myself and I can’t control it! How annoying is THAT?” We sat down to dinner, and upon standing up the whole back of my dress was soaked. OK, this isn’t pee, this is something else. This ‘leaking’ continued for an hour or so and I started to piece together the earlier part of my day.

A tad tired from the wonderful baby shower my friends had thrown for me the day before, I decided to venture out in search of a baby car seat. My hunt was futile; there was NO WAY I was going to drop $300 on something that we didn’t really need. Our friends had already given us their perfectly good used one. I was on my way to another store when my tummy seized up into a Braxton Hicks contraction. Pulling the van over to the roadside I touched my rock-hard stomach. This contraction was lasting longer than they usually did. Several more followed and I decided it was best to just go home. I called Zol and told him to check up on me in few hours, saying the contractions felt a little different today. Upon getting home I napped and when I woke up I felt fine again and started to make dinner.

After dinner that night the leaking continued and in my soggy underwear I sat at the computer and searched ‘water breaking + pregnancy’. Thanks to Hollywood my ‘idea’ of my water breaking was a massive gush that left me standing in a pool of fluids - turns out this rarely the case. If your water breaks at all, it sometimes comes out in small leak… much like a slight pee in your panties! I called my midwife and told her what was happening.

“I thought you’d be an early one!” she said. “Get to sleep early and your contractions will probably start around midnight.” My due date was still 11 days away and we were 11 days unprepared for our home water birth… VERY typical of us of course. This week we had planned to get the living room ready; take down the table, blow up the portable bed and the birthing pool… lay down the tarp… you know, home birthing stuff?! Zol was anxious to get started, but still in denial I said NO, lets just wait and see if this is for real. Around 9pm I started to have a slight pink hue in the ‘leakage’ and that’s when I knew it was the real thing.
A strange calm fell over me as I sat on the couch flipping through channels and watching my husband take down our massive dining room table.

I’m going to have a baby.

I AM GOING TO HAVE A BABY TOMORROW.

Holy SHIT, it’s happening.

With the table finally taken down we decided to go to bed at 10:30pm. I laid there, becoming more uncomfortable with every tick of the clock. By 11pm it went from uncomfortable to something else.

12:00am… “Hun, I think I’m having contractions…”
It’s really hard to explain a contraction. The closest thing I can compare it to is the feeling that you have just before you have to puke violently, but without the nausea if that makes any sense? Imaging the uncontrollable feeling that your body has JUST before you blow major chunks. Your body becomes engulfed in itself and there is NO stopping what’s about to happen… and then a minute long surge that coats every fiber within you ------------------------- and then its over. That was a contraction for me.

We were half way through our prenatal classes at this point and had yet to learn how to time contractions. Rolling out of bed and into my office I sat at the computer and searched ‘timing contractions + pregnancy’. The pain was speratic and ununiform, but they were contractions, no doubt about it! Every 2 to 5 minutes Zol could hear my grunts and groans as I sat at my computer timing each surge. By midnight I’d had it and told Zol to get up and blow up the pool.

As preparations for the homebirth commenced I called my midwife. It was great to hear her clam voice on the other end of the line. She listened to me as I went through several contractions, telling me I was doing a great job. She told us to call her back when the contractions were 2 minutes apart, over a minute long and steady for 3 hours. I hung up the phone and focusing on a small nub of fabric on the blanket at my feet, this carried on for around two and half hours. Zol did his best to ‘time’ the contractions. They were all over the board and the only thing that was remotely consistent was the fact that they were getting closer and closer together. I puked up my dinner into a bowl, laughing as I did it. I couldn’t bring myself to walk around or take a hot shower as recommended, I just sat there on the couch and rocking and moaning. Zol sat across the room, notebook in hand, writing down the events as they happened… we’d previously decided that I didn’t want ANY kind of coddling or touching while going through a contraction, it would be much too annoying!

3am… “Call Beth Zol…. ZOL!!!!! CALL BETH!!!!” He dialed our midwife. He spoke briefly with her but she could hear me in the background. I must have sounded like a demon straight out of hell… such a deep guttural grunting sound was all I could muster. “I NEED TO PUSH! IIIIII NEEEED TO PUUUSH!!!!!” Beth hearing me, told Zol to make me STOP! NOT to push and she’d be there in 15 minutes. Zol then called my best friend Jess, who I wanted at the birth and he hopped in a taxi. Like she said she would be, our midwife Beth was there in less than 15 minutes… and Jess shortly there after.

“OK Dalyn, I’m just going to check you out, but your going to have to spread your legs a bit OK?”
“OH GOD, no no no… I can’t I CAN’T!” but I guess I did, or she pried them open! Her head popped up with a look of surprise.
“WOW, OK, your fully dilated! Lets get you into the pool!” The birthing pool was now full of warm water sitting in front of me. I don’t remember my PJ’s being taken off or Zol and Beth lifting me into the pool, but once that warm buoyant water surrounded me I felt a world of relief!

Jess arrived shortly after I was lowered into the pool, calmly walking in with an air of comic relief to him.
“Hey guys????? ????” He took a seat on the couch beside the pool. I felt a slight sense of relief now that he’d arrived.

Zol seemed tense yet supportive to me, but in a way needed his own support… turns out Jess would be JUST what he would require on the near horizon!

3:20am… “OK Dalyn, don’t push yet… look me in the eyes… Dalyn? Dalyn? LOOK at me… OK you’re doing great! You’re doing an amazing job! Dalyn? Dalyn? OK, LOOK at me… Keep looking at me… OK PUSH!!!” I pushed with everything that was in me. The contraction passed. It was an out of body expierience that I can’t compare to anything! The pain was gone, but now it basically felt like I was taking the biggest shit of my life! In between the contractions my body felt normal – painless as I floated in the warm water. Then I smelt something… like someone had placed a piece of burning toast RIGHT in front of my face! Zol appeared at my side with a pot of hot water, releasing it into the pool to warm it up.

“TURN IT OFF!! WHAT IIIIS THAT??? TURN IT OFF!!!!!” The smell was incredibly intense and obtrusive, breaking my process of traveling into the ‘birthing side’ of my brain. By heating up water in a pot something we’d previously cooked had spilled onto the heating element and the smoke (that nobody else could smell) was permeating the room and driving me insane!

3:30am… “OK Dalyn, with this next contraction you can push OK? But when I say stop, you need to hold off alright?” I stared at Beth’s warm eyes, so calm, so knowing. It’s rare that one looks deep into the eyes of someone she trusts that knows what is best for ones self. I don’t know that I’ve ever trusted someone as much as I did at that very moment. The need to push fell over me in a wave, Beth keeping my crazed stare aline with hers. The wave passed but quickly came back. I PUSHED….

“Do you want to see the head?! The heads right there Dalyn! Do you want to see it??” This meant somehow spreading my legs, so I passed on the new view of what was happening below. I felt nothing… NO PAIN. Amazing… but JEEZ LUOIS JUST GET IT OUT OF ME!!!!

3:50am… “Alright Zoltan, do you want to catch the baby?” In a blur I saw his face, apprehensive and sweet and scared. It makes me cry while I write this. In a hospital this situation would never have come to past… my husband kneeled on the floor in front of the pool, looking me in the eyes as my last contraction released our daughter into her new world… with the help of Beth he pulled her from the water and onto my breast and then wrapped his arms around the both of us. AMAZING. Our baby girl was alive and breathing, floating in the warmth of the water. Covered in vernix, cheesy from day one! Graye made sweet baby sounds and laid softly at my heart. Jess smiled at my side, looking down at his new goddaughter and Beth conversed with the second midwife who had just barely made it in the door before the birth…

Life was sweet and amazing and in our arms… we laid floating in it for what seemed like forever…

“OK Dalyn, now we just have to get you to push out the placenta, OK?” WHAT? Push out what? Still holding my baby they had me push… and push and push…. and PUSH. nothing. PUSH PUSH PULL PULL… the embolic cord was short. “OK, push HARD!... HARDER…”

To be continued…

i had a baby...

hello all...
well if you didn't already know, i've popped out my little one. she was 11 days early! Graye Roza Szilvassy came out with no trouble at all... 4 hour labour! the afterbirth, or placenta... well, it wasn't so fun. it was an 'interesting' experience complete with water birth, postpartum hemorrhaging and a then a nice trip to the hospital! all is well and both baby and myself are in perfect health. an entire blog posting will be dedicated to the story.

i thought id post a link to my prenatal pics... they are a tad unconventional, so be warned! we did a 60's take on prenatal life and we both love the results! our good pal Zipporah Wilson, an AMAZING photographer was just as excited as we were to try out the senerio!

http://seedlingimages.com/day_belly
or
here
ps. smoke was added LATER... i wasn't really smoking!
zippys website can be found here.