Babbles, squeals and farts

He not only fits in his exersaucer, but loves it. Each day brings new and more fun exploring the bright and noisy gadgets. He stops, babbles, squeals and farts. Smiles - looking for mommy to smile back. Farts are funny, mommy always laughs at them.

Crying It Out

I have learnt a lot since becoming a mom and not all of it has to do with parenting. Right from when labour started there was a suttle shift in my perception of others and the choices they make. I used to have such strong opinions about everything and was rarely accepting of others if it differed from my own or what I deemed appropriate. Sounds mean I guess...but I kept it to myself for the most part - I rarely will challenge someone if I think they are wrong. Like alot of people, I will just think they are wrong and move on - naturally assuming all the while that I am right and they are wrong.

Labour changed that in me. I had (and still do to some extent) very strong feelings about how babies should be brought into this world and how much intervention is too much. In my opinion before - most intervention is too much. Having had a difficult labour which lasted just shy of 100 hours I had to make certain decisions that would allow me to continue. I had an epidural at around the 80 hour mark hoping that it would give me the strength to continue for the birth. I had sworn up and down that I would never have an epidural or drugs of any kind put in my body.

When I made my judgements, was I being naive? I like to think not - but obviously the situation we were in made me change my mind on a topic I felt/feel strongly about.

Today's Candace looks differently on these questions. Though my brain is quick to judge, my heart knows that each family must make the decisions that are right for them. I am proud of myself that I can now see that. Who am I to judge?

Time

One of the funniest and unexpected parts of motherhood is how busy I am. Yet if someone asks me what I have been up to, the answer is almost always ‘nothing.’ It’s not that I do nothing…I guess it is more that I don’t think the real answer will be very interesting. I play with my son. We sing, dance, exercise (him, not me!), play, sleep, eat and so on.

I find it a very simple happiness to watch him develop new skills. Currently he is discovering his feet and I can and have watched him play for hours.

We have company now, my mother and sister and law and so after nursing they take Noah and visit. Not only do I feel a sense of emptiness, but I am lonely and bored as hell! So weird. My house is clean though and dinner is fun to make with no distractions, but oddly – I sometimes hope that he will have a meltdown and need his mommy so I can take him back.

Love

I’ve known love. All my life I have known love. But to know love as a parent is something so different and all consuming that it makes me lose my breath. I stare at my baby boy and think no one could love as much as this, right now. How many millions of parents have thought this exact same thing?

I get it now. I understand.

I cherish the few moments I get to myself each day – but even as the steaming hot shower beats down on me, I am thinking of my precious baby.

In the wee hours of the night I run through our day. Was he happy? What can I do better tomorrow?

The secret about smiles.

As soon as your baby smiles at you, all the frustration, fatigue and any other negative emotions you might be feeling just vanish.

At the first hint of a smile, I was the first to say it was just gas. I was doing myself and Noah an injustice. It was at least a week before my tired eyes started to connect that he smiled in response to what mommy was doing. I was ecstatic. I was instantly renewed.

Between feedings, Noah is most often awake. He is not a sleepy newborn. Before we discovered smiles – this time was often spent in frustration. Mommy trying to get baby to sleep, baby crying because he didn’t want to sleep. The end result was generally mommy and baby staring at each other and stuck in an old western styled showdown. Mommy usually lost. I hadn’t quite learnt that you can’t make a baby sleepy.

Smiles changed everything. Awake time is spent having tons of fun and trying to think of new ways to get the baby smiling. I have quickly learnt that you can sing about anything, including poopy diapers and the baby loves it!

Noah has moved on to learning to use his little voice. He is starting to coo and gurgle and squeal and I am as enchanted as I am with his smiles.

Noah's Birth Story

I don’t know where to start it has been so long. I have been very busy…kinda…I will get into that later. We obviously welcomed our son, Noah, into the world on February 11, 2010. That day is special because it is also Grandma Alice’s birthday.

Here is a quick recap of my labour experience. On Sunday (the 7^th) night we watched the Hangover with mom. It is so funny and we were all laughing like mad and I started to feel “funny”. Sure enough I had some tell tale labour signs right away and contractions started within a couple of hours. I kept looking at all my books…they all said to keep busy and ignore early labour. Problem was it was so painful already that there was no way to ignore it! The contractions were 10 minutes apart right from the beginning.

The day passed and the contractions got longer and closer together. At around 5 pm the decision was made to go to the hospital. Almost immediately the contractions slowed right down from 3-4 minutes to back around 10. We assumed that it was because I was so scared to the hospital. We got checked at the hospital and I was only 2 cm’s so I asked to go home and they obliged.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday – all the same. It was the weirdest actually. The contractions stayed at 10 minutes apart consistently and hurt so much. The only break was for a couple of hours on Tuesday. Tim called Joanna – the doula we had come to know and we started talking about our options. None were that great.

The worst part really was that we had our whole support team there – mom, dad and Karen and we were all just sitting around waiting, waiting, waiting. Oh and listening to me howl, literally.

Thursday early morning I officially reached my pain level. We went to the hospital and I was barely 4 cm’s. Ahhhh!!!!! At that point I had laboured at home for over 70 hours and technically it didn’t even count?!? Too bad – I was counting it anyways.

The baby was sunny side up, presenting with the widest part of his crown. This explained not only the length of labour so far but also the pain factor!!! I was put on pitocin to get things along and was on it for about 20 hours. Among other things, they said he was stuck. I don’t believe he was stuck – but I do think that we had to make the decision we did.

I could go on with a million details about the last few hours before Noah’s birth – but I don’t want to and I am sure you don’t care to hear it all. Suffice it to say it was unpleasant to say the least. It was everything I feared and more, plus some. I thank God every day that Tim and mom were there to help me come to grips with what happened.

After all that – my baby was here! The only thing I saw after the operation was his lips…weird I know but it was all I could see and I clung to image until I could see him again…which took a little over 2 hours.

He was so strong through it all. His heartbeat stayed strong and he was beautiful at birth. He might have had a bit of a misshapen head from hanging low way too long…but he was beautiful just the same.

I waited 9 months to meet my little man. I had so many ideas about him, what he was going to look like and about his little personality, about how I was going to be as his mom and most certainly about how I was going to welcome him into this world. God had different plans than I did and it was a reminder that I can’t plan everything, that something bigger than me already had a plan.

I’ll be back soon.

Noah's Birth Story