A funny thing happened on our way to having a baby...

Well, not just on the way to the hospital, but there were many funny moments, many ups and downs, during the past five days. So here comes the birth story!

On Monday I went to see my OB, and we had planned that she'd do a stretch and sweep at that appointment. She informed me she couldn't even reach my cervix, let alone tell if a S&S was possible. "Sorry," she said, "but it doesn't look like anything will be happening any time soon." HA!

At about 6am on Tuesday morning, my contractions started. They were sporadic and varying in intensity all day, but around supper time they started to pick up speed. Francis and I decided that while it may not actually be labour (though I was fairly confident it was), that we should head to the hospital to get checked just in case. Because of my previous caesarian birth, I was at risk of uterine rupture, so we felt it was prudent to not wait too long.

We arrived at the hospital around 9:30, and went to triage at labour & delivery. My contractions were every 3 minutes at this point, and lasting around a minute. I was pretty sure this was the real deal. They hooked me up to the monitors to keep track of Simon's heart rate and my contractions. This meant I had to lie on the bed for two hours. As any woman who has gone through childbirth will attest, lying down is definitely not the ideal way to labour! At this point, my contractions got much, much stronger, and I was nearly beside myself.

(A little elaboration here: I had severe back labour with Norah, as she was posterior. That was painful. This time however, all day I kept describing my contractions to my mother and Francis as "not normal". They hurt in a strange spot. Explanation to follow.)

So lying on the table, I was close to throwing up at several times, simply because of the pain. I couldn't believe how much worse it was than when I was in labour the first time. Thankfully, after two hours of this, I had dilated another 1.5cm, and went from 50% to 95% effaced. It was announced that I was, indeed, in labour. We began the process of getting admitted, and were in our room by 1 am.

Now regarding pain medication: With Norah, my plan was to go as long as I possibly could without asking for an epidural. I made it about 27-28 hours before I received my epi. This time, I had made up my mind that I most certainly would get the epidural, as soon as I was able to. Why? Well, if things went wrong quickly and I needed and emergency caesarian birth, I'd be ready to go. Without the epidural, they would have put me under general anaesthetic, and I refused to allow the possibility of being unconscious when my baby was born!

So I got the epidural around 1:40, and tried to get some sleep. At 2:30, they decided my contractions weren't strong enough to progress my labour, so the decision was made to break my water. Back to sleep I went. At 4 am, my doctor checked me and informed me of the bad news: in three hours, I'd dilated only about 1cm.

Pros and cons were tossed about, and Francis and I agreed that it was best to just head to the OR. Better to do it before things turned ugly. I was prepped for surgery, and wheeled down endless corridors.

Simon was born at 5:38am. It was very different than last time - much more relaxed in the OR. Everyone was chatty and jovial, and I wasn't nearly so exhausted. (Plus this time I didn't have to watch the whole thing in the reflection of the OR lights!) Because there was no meconium in the amniotic fluid (like last time) the actual delivery was less scary, too. They delivered his head first, and after some preliminary suctioning, I got to hear my baby cry! Then they completed the delivery, and took him to clean him up. Nobody announced the baby's gender, so Francis was invited to go around and see for himself. As soon as I heard him laugh, I knew I was right - it was a boy! I'd thought so all along.

When they brought him to meet me, I cried. I was so overjoyed! He was perfect and beautiful and perfect, and... well... perfect. We had had two possible boy names chosen, and wanted to wait until we met the baby before choosing the right one. The moment we laid eyes on him, we knew he was Simon.

(Choosing Peter as his second name may sound like a serious Biblical reference, but really it's actually more coincidental. It was decided long ago that Baby #2's second name would be one of Francis' parents' names.)

This is when the shenanigans began. First, his birth weight. He was measured at 21" long, and 6lbs 8oz. That would make for one very long and skinny baby! This mistake wouldn't be confirmed until his 24 hour weigh-in, when the scale registered 7lbs 9oz! (Details in a future post.)

This was the time for me to learn interesting things about my anatomy. Apparently, I have a heart-shaped uterus, and my OB determined during the surgery that this is likely the reason why both Simon and Norah were posterior and refused to descend and engage in my pelvis - causing both labours to stall, resulting in the caesarian births. The second thing I learned cleared up a lot of confusion. Remember I mentioned the very strange contractions? It would seem that when I healed from Norah's delivery, the scar tissue from my uterus formed adhesions with my abdominal wall. That explains the extra-intense pain, and the strange location of the main pain of my contractions. It's unlikely I would have been able to endure that for a natural child birth, even if I hadn't already decided to request an epidural!

Next came the Big Fat Delay. Simon and Francis went off to the nursery, where they could enjoy an hour of skin-to-skin contact time. I, on the other hand, was wheeled of to the reovery room to practice lifting my knees. The doctor assured me that since it was the middle of the night and the recovery room would be empty, Francis and Simon would be able to join me.

Well, I waited patiently. When Norah was born, she was brought to me after her skin-to-skin time to initiate breastfeeding - I was expecting the same thing this time. After close to two hours, my OB came in to give me the news. Simon was breathing very quickly, and wasn't allowed to leave the maternity ward. She assured me that his vitals were fine, and his O2 saturation was fine. They weren't entirely sure why his breathing was abnormal, but their best guess was that it would self-correct after he was able to breastfeed. Yet they wouldn't bring him to me, nor would they allow me to go to my room to see him. In fact, between the moment he was born and the next time I saw him, nearly three and a half hours passed! (I'm very grateful that I didn't find out until much later that he also has a heart murmur.) I knew I couldn't leave until I was able to lift my knees about 6" off the bed. It seemed to take forever - at first I couldn't budge! After learning about the breathing concerns, I was more determined than ever to get those knees up. I've never worked so hard at anything in my life! I finally discovered that if I cheated a little, I could do it. Lifting my knees straight up didn't work, but if I turned my knees outward, I could bend them outward and then fling my knees upward. I did it a hundred times or more, until the recovery room nurse was satisfied. I was grateful my jello legs cooperated.

Finally, the long-awaited moment arrived, and Simon and I were reunited. Three and a half hours of separation is a very long time right after nine months of 24/7 contact! Simon took to breastfeeding immediately, and for that I'm immensely grateful. He's a very happy baby, and I'm sure he'll be a good sleeper eventually. For now, he much prefers to sleep in Mommy's arms or on Mommy's chest. I'm happy to oblige!

The story doesn't end here, but it's long, so I'll continue it in another post. (Or two. Or maybe three.) Stay tuned for exciting stories like "Blasting the Billi", "Oh, What a Night! Coming home from the hospital" and my favourite: "Norah Has a Brother".

Thanks for reading. And thanks for all your prayers and well-wishes. Simon, Norah, Francis and I are feeling well-loved and supported!

Sticks and stones

You know how it goes:
"Sticks and stones may break my bones,

But words will never hurt me."

Not true, my friend. Not true.

I remember my mother (and father, and aunts, and teachers, and, and, and...) repeating this to me/us when I was little. Whenever my brother would call me poo-poo-face, or whenever I ended up at the business end of some new fat joke at school. I know it was always said with the best of intentions, but it just ended up making me feel like I shouldn't be as upset as I was. And frankly, I'm pretty sure that at least most of the time, I had every reason to be upset!

So why bring this up now?

An anniversary looms on the horizon. Not the happy kind, either. Francis and I got engaged on Christmas Eve of 2005. In the spring of 2006, right after Francis got his acceptance to the B.Ed. program, my parents (well, Mom really) put an engagement announcement in the local newspaper.

This is the photo that ran with the announcement. Weren't we cute?

Not long after it was published, I received a card in my mailbox at work. The announcement had included the name of the parish where I worked in Orleans. The envelope was addressed to:
Jaclyn Gannon
c/o Divine Infant Parish
Orleans, ON

That's it. No address, no postal code and no return address. I thought it was a little odd, so I checked the postmark, and saw that it had come through the post office not too far from my parents' neighbourhood.

I opened the envelope, and took out a pretty flowered note card. Inside held a message written in lovely, somewhat old-fashioned penmanship. The note began by congratulating me on getting engaged. How sweet! I thought. Yeah, right...

It went on to say that the sender (who signed the note only as "A Grandmother"), was sure that my decision to marry "outside my race" must be a huge disappointment to my parents and my grandmother, because she was certain that they had "raised me better than that". She went on to tell me that such unions never last, and I should go find a "nice white boy" to marry instead. She insisted I should spare myself the future divorce, by getting out while I still could.

Reading this, standing in the parish office, my jaw was dropping lower and lower. The secretary and another staff member (both ladies I was very close with) were watching me with some concern. They could tell something was wrong. But it wasn't until I read the next part - the part that reduced me instantly to tears - that they swooped in and took the card away. (After reading it themselves, it went instantly into the shredder.)

The "grandmother" told me I was being selfish. She said I obviously hadn't considered the future of my poor children, who would "bear the mark of my sin" because they'd be bi-racial (except she said "mixed").

My sin? My sin? Marrying a good, honest, loving, faith-filled man is a sin? Just because he happens to be Chinese? For some reason, this woman was raised to believe that God has a problem with people marrying someone of a different ethnic background. Even though she seemed to be somewhat familiar with my family (identifying my grandmother), she clearly doesn't actually know my family. If she did, she'd know my parents and grandmother would never have a problem with my choice of spouse based on race. Not just because they're not racist, but because my father himself is the son of a bi-racial man. My dad is one quarter black - his paternal grandfather was a black man who married a white woman.

I've had many (and I do mean many!) strangers stop me on the street, in stores, in church, just to tell me how beautiful they think Norah is. In fact, it happened 3 times in 2 days last week. Nobody has ever stopped me to tell me that they could see the "mark of my sin" in her.

I still feel the sting of those words in that card. Not because I believe a word of it, but because it saddens me that racism still exists. It upsets me to think that Norah may someday personally encounter someone who thinks that way. Growing up white in a predominantly white area, I'd never experienced racism like that on a personal level before this. It changed me. It made me aware of the need to continue to pray for people's views to be changed - for hearts to be changed. I can't hate the woman who sent that note, because I'm sure she honestly believed she was doing the right thing. And, more importantly, because intolerance can never be healed with more hatred.

Sarcasm is not becoming

Is it pregnancy itself that makes me more sarcastic than usual? Or is it the exceptional number of sarcasm-causing comments that I get while being pregnant? I prefer to think it's the latter, though my husband may disagree.

What is it with people that makes them think a woman's body/child-spacing/future is fair game once she gets pregnant? Don't people (other women, other mothers, especially) realize that the hormones and sleeplessness that go hand-in-hand with gestating a human make one less able and willing to receive such insensitive comments with grace? Honestly...

*The following comments are all actual things that have been said to me over the past seven months - and more than once.

"Wow, Jaclyn! You're HUGE!" Yeah, you too!

"Two under two, eh? You're going to have your hands full!" Really? Hadn't thought of that. I was thinking it would get easier the more kids I had.

"Pregnant AGAIN? You do know what causes this, right?" No, care to explain it to me?

"Wow, you're actually going to eat THAT? (Pointing at whatever evil brownie/cookie/peanut product I happen to be holding.) I guess you're not too worried about your baby!" Baby? No, I only worry about my taste buds.

"Are you really going to drink that coffee?" Yes, but don't worry - I made it good and "Irish".

"So you'll be done after this one, right?" Done talking to you? Quite likely.

"You're planning to have more? Have you considered the cost of university educations?" Yes. But it's okay. We plan to encourage all our children to drop out of high school and spend their lives flipping burgers or maybe cleaning people's windshields for spare change.

"Do you know what you're having?" Well, we hope it's a baby, but you never know - could be a small kitchen appliance.

Just for the record, I've never actually said any of those responses out loud. Usually I just smile and bite my tongue, or say something nice and polite. At least I only have about eight and a half weeks left. Oh, but then it's "You still have 2 months left? Where are you going to put the rest of it!" I'll tell you where I'd like to put it...

See? I'm sarcastic and NOT NICE!

Decision time

I thought I had healed, both physically and emotionally, from my experience of having a casesarian section when Norah was born. Over the past five or six weeks, I've come to realize that I was somewhat mistaken on both counts. I was out one evening with five other women from our parish, three of whom are young mothers as well. We were discussing our labour and delivery experiences, and one woman, even after hearing what I went through, and even though she'd had a rather easy experience said, "I'm scared of going through labour again! I wish I could just ask to have a c-section!" It was probably one of my greatest moments of self-control. I continued to sit in my seat and smile politely, when all I wanted to do was run crying from the coffee shop.


Why would anyone choose such an experience if it weren't necessary? Why would one want to be numbed from the ribs down, have her arms strapped down straight out by her sides, have a sheet draped in front of her face, and be totally cut off and disassociated from the birth of her child? Every time I watch "A Baby Story" and the woman ends up having a c-section, I end up in tears. I know I certainly never want to repeat that experience.


And yet, that is what I have chosen to do.


If you've read my older posts, you know that recently my OB offered me the option of attempting a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarian). I was overjoyed at the prospect of being able to fulfill my dream of actually pushing out my baby. Actually, the way I explained it to Francis was "to actually give birth, not just have a baby taken out of me". So, like with just about everything else in my life, I sat down and started researching the pros and cons of each option.


There are risks involved with both c-sections and VBACs. And those risks are not insignificant. For example, with a c-section (which is major abdominal surgery):
- The maternal death rate is twice as high for elective c/s as for vaginal birth
- Babies delivered by c/s have an increased risk of respiratory problems.
- Serious complications for women undergoing c/s include infection (up to 30% of women acquire one postpartum), haemorrhage, blood transfusions, bladder and bowel injury, heart and lung complications, blood clots in the legs, anesthesia complications, possible scar tissue adhesions, the ability to establish breastfeeding is reduced, and possible hysterectomy (both in current and future pregnancies)
- In subsequent pregnancies, women with a prior c/s have higher rates of secondary infertility, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and serious placental abnormalities.


See? Scary stuff. Believe me, I don't take any of that lightly. But here's the difference: with a VBAC, the biggest risks are to the baby, whereas the risks with the c-section are primarly to the mother's well-being.


The most significant risk in attempting a VBAC is uterine rupture. Sure, it's my uterus that would rupture, but it's my baby whose life would be on the line. Best case scenario - oxygen-deprivation related problems like cerebral palsy. Worst case scenario - baby would die. Because of the extreme pain I've been experiencing at the site of my internal stitches, I worry that this may be an indication that I'd be at higher risk for complications during labour and delivery, should I attempt a VBAC.


As a woman, I have strong preferences about the kind of birth I would like to experience, and nowhere in those preferences will you find "c-section". But as a mother, I know that it is my job to do what is best and safest for my baby regardless of my preferences. And isn't that, really, what so much of motherhood is about? Dying to ourselves, dying to our preferences, to do what our children need.

I'd prefer not to change poopy diapers. But I do, and I do it with love. I'd prefer not to let my dinner get cold while I try (often in vain) to find something that will suit Norah's tastes of the day. But I do, and I do it with love. By the time I was using my third kind of antibiotics and was bleeding nearly constantly, I would have prefered to stop breastfeeding. But I kept going, and I did it with love.

I'd prefer not to give up my hopes and dreams of being able to push my baby into the world. But it's safer for my child, so that's what I'll do.

And I hope I'll be able to do it with love.

2008

A TV character once said - I think it was on Ally McBeal - that if reflecting on the past year doesn't make you cry either tears of sadness or tears of joy, then it has been a waste. I can honestly say, based on that criteria, that 2008 was anything but wasted! I figured I'd do a quick year-in-review post. This is mostly for my own need to look back, but read on if you care to.

January: The highlight of our year came early! My due date was January 25th, so after a feast of hot wings on the 24th (putting my faith in the old wives' tale about spicy food inducing labour...), my active got labour started around 2am on my due date. After a long and frustrating (and at times scary) labour, Norah Catherine Wei-Chu Kwok was born at 3:37pm on Saturday, January 26th by c-section. I was blessed that my mother was able to board a plane once she found out I was in labour, and she was at the hospital with me (along with Francis and his mother - but that was to be expected) for the last several hours of my labour, and she stayed for several days after to help out.

February: I turned 29. To be specific, I turned 29 sitting in the waiting room at the ER with an IV lock in my arm, awaiting the results of the blood test that would tell me if I did indeed have a post-op abscess. Luckily, I did not. I did, however, have 2 other breastfeeding-related infections which required 3 kinds of antibiotics. My parents and grandmother came to visit, so Gooey could meet his first grandchild and Nana could meet her first great-grandchild. Later in the month, Francis, Norah and I packed for our first family trip - a ski weekend at Mont Tremblant with Francis' parents, his brother, his sister and her husband and baby. Looking back I must have been CRAZY to agree to go away for a weekend with a 3 week old baby, but I'm glad I did.

March: We spent March Break in Halifax, introducing Norah to my family. She was 6 weeks old when we first took her on a plane - I was 14 the first time I flew! Norah was baptised on March 30th - Divine Mercy Sunday. We had wanted her baptised as soon as possible after she was born, but the new pastor at our parish doesn't allow baptisms during Lent. It was suggested we go elsewhere, but after working at that parish, at that particular Mass, for 4 years, it meant a lot to us to have our beloved community be witnesses to such an important moment in our daughter's life. My sister, Jenna, and my brother-in-law, Damian, are Norah's godparents.

April & May: Drawing a total blank here... I honestly can't remember anything newsworthy from these two months - which likely means I'm over-looking something significant. *Sigh* My brain is not what it used to be.

June: This was another big month. Francis found out he got a full-time permanent teaching position at the high school where he had been teaching as an LTO for the year. We were both thrilled, as the new job would mean being able to buy a house, and the school itself is such a great place for him to work. We went to Halifax near the end of the month, to prepare for Jenna's wedding. It ended up being a rollercoaster trip, however, as a week before the wedding we lost a cousin and a second cousin, both suddenly and tragically. We weren't able to attend Shana's funeral as it was in St. John, but Tommy's funeral was... well, I don't even know how to describe it. It was, I suppose, exactly how it should have been, under the circumstances. Undoubtedly one of the hardest days in many of my relatives' lives. The wedding, however, was a beautiful celebration and the affirmation of life and goodness that many of us needed. Jenna and Patrick were glowing, and we were overjoyed to welcome the good Mr. Craine into our crazy family.

July: We spent a day in Barry's Bay celebrating Jenna's birthday and Norah's half-birthday. It was wonderful to see my sister in her own home as a married woman!

August: Our good friends Tracey and David got married, and Francis and I were honoured to help out with the wedding: me as Matron of Honour, and Francis as a musician at the Mass. We had our first real family vacation, just the three of us. We spent a few days in Toronto, wandering around down town, eating amazing Chinese food and visiting with friends and family.

September: On one spectacular day near the end of the month, we found out two big pieces of news: we were expecting baby #2, AND our offer had been accepted and we were soon to be home-owners!

October: We took posession of our new house on October 17th. I figure having a mortgage was the final piece in the "grown-up" puzzle. We did some preliminary moving and painting for the next couple of weekends, thanks to the help of Francis' family and some good friends.

November: We finally made the big move to living in the new house full-time. Emptying out the old rental place was a big pain in the butt. We did a LOT of purging - many bags of garbage/recycling, bags of things to give to SVdP, and a lot of bigger items that we gave/sold to some friends. And yet, when we started unpacking at the new house, we realized we still have too much stuff! I think more purging will be among our new year's resolutions...

December: Norah's first Christmas: celebrated in Halifax. Norah's first tooth: showed up on Christmas morning. My uncle died: on Francis' 27th birthday. Norah's second tooth: showed up on New Year's day. Norah's first steps: also New Year's day.

So it's been a wild and wonderful year for the Kwok family. Parts of it were hard, but that's how life is, so we've chosen to learn and grow from the challenges, rather than whine about them.

We're looking forward to even more fun and excitement in 2009 when we welcome two new nieces and/or nephews, at least one more first-cousin-once-removed, and of course our own new bundle of joy!