A lot has changed since my last post. Shortly after last year’s Bluenose Marathon, my husband and I decided to start a family. Now, almost a year later, we are parents to the most amazing 2 month old baby girl. We decided to call her Avery and her story (although comparable to the stories of most other new parents), is a special one. It’s special simply because it’s hers and ours and nobody else’s. The journey of how our family began belongs only to us and that makes it the most cherished story of our lives so far.

Avery began as just a thought, an idea. “What IF we decided to have a baby? What IF we took the plunge into parenthood?” It didn’t take long for that idea to manifest itself into a dream. A goal even. We wanted to be parents. Eventually, we came to the decision that we’d go for it. We decided that as soon as I checked running a marathon off my bucket list, we’d start prioritizing a family. A few days after I crossed the finish line last May, I was pregnant.

My pregnancy was pretty easy and uneventful. I had no health issues and our little baby was always healthy and right on track. We were extremely blessed because we got to spend the entirety of my pregnancy celebrating, decorating the nursery, shopping for adorable things, and taking photos of my ever-growing baby bump. It was blissful… aside from all the usual pregnancy symptoms like heart burn and utter exhaustion.

Finally, at 2:30 in the morning on February 20th, my contractions started. I was terrified. I knew we were physically ready – the nursery had been completed for months, the hospital bags were already packed and we’d read every book and watched every video that the experts told us to – but we definitely did not feel ready in that moment. I don’t think any about-to-be-parent ever truly does.

We arrived at the hospital at around 6am and this is when Avery’s story really began. The triage nurse suggested that we walk the hospital halls for a couple of hours to get things moving more quickly. I remember thinking she was nuts. I was in pain like I’d never felt before in my life (let’s not forget I’d run a marathon recently – I know pain!) and they wanted me to walk around for a couple of HOURS!? I survived for 45 minutes of very slow sauntering around the main floor before I couldn’t take it anymore. At this point, they tossed be in a warm bath and told me to “try that” for a while to ease the pain.

Another 2 hours later and I was finally moved to a delivery room and given an epidural. Nobody warns you in advance that the sheer act of getting the epidural is it’s own little piece of Hell. Trying to sit motionless, in a very specific position while having incredibly strong contractions every couple of minutes felt impossible. I remember thinking “it can’t get worse than this. It’s all down hill from here.” Man, oh man, was I wrong.

By 6:00 that night, we were still in the delivery room, I was still pushing, and Avery had still not arrived. I had been pushing for nearly 6 hours, had eaten next to nothing, and was running out of steam when a surgeon came in to the room with two medical students. This is when they told me that I’d have to deliver my baby girl by C-section. I was devastated, angry, and exhausted. I had skipped all the videos and reading materials about C-section births because “that would never happen to me. My pregnancy’s been perfect, so my birth will be too.” I remember crying the entire time they were prepping me for surgery. And crying all the way through the procedure. My daughter hadn’t even been born yet, and I’d already failed as a mother. I couldn’t even give birth to her like a “normal” woman. Because of me, she was going to have to be born in an operating room through a procedure that I knew absolutely nothing about. My head was spinning from fear, sadness, and sleep deprivation. This was not the birth I had planned for my precious girl.

During the operation, my husband stayed by my side. He maintained eye contact the entire time and said encouraging things. He felt my pain, I know he did. He’s always been a hugely empathetic man. The freezing that the doctors used didn’t work as well on me as it does on most people. Although I wasn’t in pain, I could still feel what was happening and the experience is one I’ll never forget. I was scared for the baby, scared for myself, and scared for what the next few days would bring us. The cocktail of drugs that was pumping through my body caused me to shake and I developed a fever. It was the most afraid and the most helpless I’d ever felt in my life.

Sometime around 8pm, in the midst of feeling sorry for myself,  I heard the tiny cry of a newborn and for an instant, I forgot that I was shaking. I forgot the pain, the bright lights of the operating room and the voices of the doctors. I forgot that I was lying on an operating table and I forgot about the 6 hours of pushing. But I’ll never forget that sound. When I heard Avery’s tiny, helpless voice cry out for the first time, it was elevating. It was a feeling of euphoria that only other mothers can understand. But it was quickly replaced again by sadness and defeat. I couldn’t see my baby girl from behind the curtain they had drawn across my body for the surgery. I couldn’t reach out and touch her. I didn’t get to witness her first few moments in this great big world. I just listened, shaking and crying behind a curtain while my husband cut the umbilical chord. I remember desperately wanting to see her face, to hold her, to help her stop crying. I wanted to be her mom.

After a few minutes that felt  more like hours to me, a nurse brought Avery over to me. She laid her gently on my chest and held her there while my useless arms continued to shake. I tried to will my arms to reach up and hold her, but they couldn’t. I had no strength left and the drugs had taken over. For the next 3 hours, we were in recovery. My husband sat in a rocking chair at my bedside and held our beautiful girl while I got poked and prodded with needles and tubes and injections of God knows what. “I want to hold her” was the only thing running though my mind.

Several hours after her birth, Avery was finally in my arms and I was not letting go. Now 1am, our family (who had been in the waiting room all day and all evening), got to catch a quick glimpse of her as we were wheeled in my bed from the recovery room to a private room where we would spend the next 4 days. After 23 hours without eating, I ordered a feast and spent the rest of the night watching Avery sleep and holding her when she woke. I wasn’t able to get up so I relied heavily on my husband in those first few days to look after her and to bring her to me in my bed. From there though, it got better. Each day got a little easier until, on the 3rd day, I started walking again. On the 4th day we came home.

Now, almost 9 weeks later, I am finally feeling human enough that I’m thinking about running again. I’ve only just started taking walks in the mornings and I still don’t feel nearly as strong as I was before I got pregnant. But I’m well on my way and I plan to enter into a 5km race in September. I’ve gotta start somewhere, right?

Although my birth experience wasn’t a very positive one while it was happening, I now look back on it fondly because without that experience, I don’t think that I’d be as mentally strong as I am now for my baby. If I could handle all of that, I know that I can handle anything that motherhood throws at me. Avery is the light of my life and I can’t wait to see each and every chapter unfold in the story of her own, precious little life.

Cheers!

One proud momma.