Magic Belly Buttons

In the past six months my older son has asked me on several occasions from where on my body his baby brother came out.  Usually this question would come up at the dinner table.  My husband and I have always been comfortable using the proper names for body parts to normalize the conversation and so our son is quite familiar with the word penis.  We occasionally need to remind him that it is a "bathroom word" and not necessarily something we need to discuss over dinner.  He was also taught the word vagina but it comes up much less frequently in our conversations.  I think one of the few times I can recall him saying the word was immediately after he learned it and then asked to see mine (the answer was no).  Sometimes it's a struggle to maintain my composure and pretend that these innocent questions don't also make for really awkward conversation.

My husband and I never did discuss how we would talk to our son about birth though.  So when he asked me for the first time where the baby had come out, I panicked and made a joke saying the baby magically passed through my belly button.  Then I swiftly changed topics.  I could tell that my son didn't really believe me, and that was fine because I didn't actually want him to think babies are born from belly buttons.  I was just buying some time.  But then the question was posed to me another two or three times weeks later and each time I just said it was from my belly button.  

Last week while my son and I were building a pirate ship Ninja Turtle fortress using LEGO and a whole lot of imagination I decided it was time to have the conversation.  I didn't want my previous avoidance of the topic to create a huge mystery in my son's head, or suggest to him that I wouldn't be someone he could always come to with his curiosity.  So the conversation went something like this:

Me:  "So remember how you asked Mummy about where the baby came out from?"

Son: "Yah?" [searching through a pile of LEGO]

Me: "Well boys and girls have different body parts, right?"

Son: [nod without looking up from his LEGO]

Me:  "What is the name for a boy's private part?"

Son: "Penis."  [big grin, still not looking up]

Me: "And what is it for a girl?"

Son: [Shrug, grins awkwardly] "I don't remember."

Me: "Vagina, remember?"

Son: "Hee hee, buh-gi-na" [he chuckles, turning it into a joke]

Me: "No, how do you say it properly?"

Son: "Vagina."

Me: "Ok, well that's where the baby came out.  Not from my belly button.  That was just a joke..."

Son: [Interrupting, eyes wide open] "Babies come out of your penis?!?!" [forefinger and thumb about an inch apart, hovering over pants]

I imagined my son picturing a marble-sized baby coming out of my penis and thought, well that went about as well as I had hoped.  

Packing List

In North America we seem to have an endless supply of toys, equipment, gizmos, and gadgets for babies.  Never was this fact made more clear to me than in 2015 when I attended the ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas as a vendor.  This show is advertised as "The World of Juvenile Products - All In One Place" and draws more than 1500 booths all focused on the world of baby.  Walking through aisle after aisle of vendors was frankly overwhelming and you realize how much of the market is filled with products that are aimed at solving a problem that perhaps doesn't actually exist just to create the demand.  

For the past four years our own basement has been storage to much of the baby gear used by my eldest son when he was under a year old.  Ironically it feels like humans take up the most space when they are smallest; there was a crib, travel crib, exersaucer, car seat, stroller, two bouncy chairs, foam play mats, portable high chairs, and multiple ride-on toys.  When my son turned ten months old we had our first family vacation to London, England for my cousin's wedding.  While making a list of "necessities" for my son including gear for travel and mealtime I wondered how in the world we could pack everything onto the plane.  Do we bring a car seat or rent one after we arrive?  Do we take the stroller or just use the carrier everywhere we go?  Do we use the travel crib or just share the bed?  Where will he nap if we don't bring the travel crib?  Annoyed, I started complaining to my mom about what a hassle it would be to travel with a baby.

Then, without an ounce of sarcasm, my mom nodded and shared how she had also found it a challenge to pack for my brother as a baby when they left Vietnam back in 1979.  "We could only bring two bags," she remembered, and went on to describe some items she packed away for their journey - not headed for vacation but instead an escape on a junk ship that would ultimately take 36 days to reach the refugee camps in Hong Kong.  My brother was less than a year old. 

So that jolted me back to reality and put my troubles into perspective.   I grew up hearing the stories of my parents leaving Vietnam so I can absolutely recognize how trivial my problems are by comparison.  The fact that I could even forget for a moment what they would have gone through shows how blessed and easy my life has been.

I think back occasionally to this conversation I had with my mom.  It makes me chuckle (and feel ashamed) at how absurd my complaints about whether or not to pack a stroller would have sounded followed by my mom's completely offhand recount of leaving her life behind.  Could I pack up my life into two bags?  I've over-packed for almost every trip I've ever taken.

Lesson to be learned here is that you can get by on so much less than you think, and when necessary you can get by on even less.  Almost everything is a luxury.  

Overnight flight to London

Slightly too big for the on-board bassinet but it worked

Taking a tour of the Tower of London

1979 - My parents and brother on a flight to Canada after eight months in refugee camps

Labour of Love

I'm exhausted from this week of solo-parenting.  The boys have been asleep in [my] bed for over an hour and Mike is taking the red-eye back from California.  The house is quiet. It's a good time to start writing again.

Three months ago, also on a Thursday, I started to feel regular but mild contractions.  I was 39wks 6days pregnant and baby's head had been fixed in position since week 36.  It was such a challenge to walk during my final two weeks of pregnancy that I couldn't believe the baby hadn't arrived already.  I had made it just past 38 weeks the first time around. Finally I felt regular contractions starting around dinner time, occuring every 5-7 min and lasting about thirty seconds.  

They were mild though and not getting any stronger over time.  After about two hours of these contractions I told Mike we should take our son to his parents' house for the night, just in case.  Mike didn't seem to take the suggestion too seriously at first, not very convinced I might actually be going into labour.  Well neither was I at that point but I didn't want to worry about what to do with our son in the middle of the night if the baby did decide to come.  Besides, a false alarm wouldn't be the end of the world.  After another ten minutes I said more urgently "I really think we should take him over now."  It was around 8:30pm, our son's bedtime, and I was starting to get annoyed that we hadn't left yet.  I watched Mike take out his work laptop from his bag and set it on the dining table.  "What are you doing?" I asked irritated.  He was setting his out-of-office reply.

A little over an hour later we had returned home after dropping off our son.  We had been prepared to go straight to the hospital from my in-laws' but the contractions hadn't progressed at all and were still mild after over three hours.  We flipped on Netflix for a bit and then decided to go to bed.  I called my midwife to let her know about the contractions but told her we were headed to sleep.  She had expected me to say we were headed to the hospital and was thrown off (our son had been born relatively quickly and everyone was expecting an even faster labour this time around).  I was disappointed and a little frustrated that perhaps this could very well be a false alarm and theoretically I'd have to wait up to another two weeks before baby would arrive.

Surprisingly I managed to fall asleep and it wasn't until 2:30am that my contractions woke me up.  The pain as moderate at this point and so I timed them for the next hour.  Since they were only 3-5 min apart we called the midwife who told us to head straight for St. Michael's Hospital. She would meet us there.  This was really going to happen!We listened to an episode of the Reply All podcast on the way down.  Upon entering the hospital we were met with security guards at the desk who need to remotely unlock the doors to the rest of the hospital during the wee hours of the night.  To keep the drunks and crazies out, I believe.  St. Mike's is after all located in the heart of downtown.  My mind was clearly distracted when I had spoken with the midwife earlier because I somehow thought we were supposed to wait for her in the waiting room at the main entrance rather than up in the Labour and Delivery ward.  She lives right by our house and I was convinced we would have beat her to the hospital and would see her when she arrived.

The hospital is connected to a Second Cup near the main entrance and we proceeded to watch what looked like a dispute between a drunken woman and a homeless man who kept darting back and forth between the cafe and waiting area.  I couldn't quite tell whether they were a couple or not but they seemed to know each other.  At one point the man tried to leave the hospital through the revolving door but the woman jammed it so he couldn't, all the while shouting that he had stolen her wallet or purse.  The security guards were not amused.  My guess is they have to deal with situations like this on a daily basis.  I was trying to focus on my breathing and not on the crazy couple thirty feet away.

After ten or fifteen minutes we decided to head up to the Labour and Delivery ward, if nothing else but to get away from this scene.  It wasn't really the Zen atmosphere I was hoping for.  Aside from the dispute downstairs the hospital was near silent at this time of night.  Our midwife had indeed arrived already and had set up the delivery room for us, wondering why we were taking so long.  I walked by several nurses at the station in front of our room but after that, for the next two hours, the only people I saw were Mike and our midwife.  The next two hours became an experience like nothing I expected and something I want to remember forever.

It was a very different experience from my first labour where I was put for a few hours in a bed in triage until a delivery room opened up; where I had a sensor strapped to my belly to monitor contractions and a fetal heartbeat; where I wasn't given an epidural until I was fully dilated and even that took two tries and a consult with a second anaesthesiologist because the epidural wouldn't take.  They ended up giving me the C-section dose which, to everyone's surprise, wore off after an hour which is when I decided to push.  This time around there was no drama, no monitors, no epidural.  It honestly could have taken place in my own home but there was no way either Mike or I would have agreed to that.  

I entered active labour 45 min after arriving and for the next hour it was practically silent in the room.  I had my eyes squeezed tight for much of that time and concentrated so deeply on breathing that I could barely think of anything else.  To my surprise the midwife barely spoke, only occasionally saying something encouraging in an almost whisper and dabbing my sweaty forehead just once.  It was my first time with a midwife and I had expected her to provide more coaching or almost be like a personal cheerleader.  That didn't end up being the case.  However looking back, the silence was just fine as cheerleading probably would have angered me.  The silence was definitely better than the faint yawning I heard from Mike beside me on a stool while my eyes were shut tight and I was experiencing the worst pain of my life.  Three times, that happened.  Three yawns.  I counted.

I knew if I started to cry as I did in my first labour then I would just unravel and lose control.  So when I felt the tears starting to come, when the pain seemed unbearable, I clenched my teeth and forced myself to stop holding my breath.  In and out, in and out. Just breathe.  Everything was progressing so quickly.  It only lasted an hour (mercifully) but I was told the pain was probably more intense as a result, similar to when women are induced.  I didn't have time to think or ask about an epidural - I doubt there would have been time to get one anyway.  It was traumatic, no doubt.  I admit without shame that I panicked more than once about how I'd make it through this pain that was beyond anything I had ever felt.  During this pregnancy I had read much of Childbirth Without Fear by Grantly Dick-Read (by the way, not the most fortunately name and also, why did they choose such a frightening photo of a baby for the front cover??).  I disagree that it was simply my fear that brought on such intense pain. I'm quite sure it was my being torn apart that brought on such intense pain.

When it was time to push I was terrified, truly terrified.  The pain was shocking and I could hardly bring myself to cause more pain by pushing.  I imagine it's like preparing to jump out of a plane, where you have to psych yourself up for it.  I heard my midwife tell me a second time and after one or two pushes I distinctly recall a violent convulsing of my abdomen. I don't know if it was my muscles simply taking over to push the baby out, or if it was the feeling of my placenta separating from my body.  I just remember violent convulsions followed by horrible pain followed by relief and tears.  I think I was in shock when they placed the baby on my chest.  I just clutched him breathless and looked over at Mike whose eyes were filled with tears.

But now that I've survived labour without an epidural I feel grateful to have had that experience.  Just once.  Never again.  Just once.  Honestly though, I felt so much more connected to what was happening this time around.  It was such a different experience with a midwife, with no interventions, with no masking of the pain, with no hospital stay sharing a room with another family with a newborn.

Without the epidural I felt everything that came after;  The delivery of the placenta, the delivery of what felt like fist-sized blood clots.  I could feel the umbilical cord warm and wet draped across my inner thigh.  I could feel the four injections before they stitched me up.  It was all so visceral and those moments remained vivid in my mind for the weeks following the birth.

Our midwife told us she would show us the placenta once she finished up some paperwork regarding the birth.  Mike and I looked at each other.  "Why do we want to see the placenta?" I wondered, and Mike asked aloud.  "Because it's so cool, your baby lived in here," was her reply.  And she was right, it was cool after we got over the ick factor of it being a huge slimy organ that had just come from inside of my body.  She showed us the hole where the baby exited from, the attachment of the umbilical cord, the calcifications that were starting to form on the placental wall indicating it was time for baby to be born.  I was amazed when she showed me how much of the placenta had been attached to the wall of my uterus, explaining I had a wound of the same size now which is why I would bleed for several weeks postpartum while everything healed.  It was equal parts nauseating and fascinating.

Our beautiful, healthy baby was born at 6:14am, less than two hours after arriving at the hospital.  With no complications we were discharged three hours later.  We had watched the sun rise with our new baby and it was time now to drive home with him.  It felt surreal.  Everyone else had dropped off their kids at school and were on their way to work, going about their day as usual.  We were taking a new person home with us, a person we had waited such a long time to meet. Longer than the nine months I had carried him in my belly.  And even though we weren't new parents the feeling was no less magical.