New Arrival

I'm very pleased to announce that I'm not pregnant anymore!  Little Troy Robert Conrad was born on August 23rd at 1:50am - 2 1/2 weeks earlier than expected.  He announced his 8lb, 20inch long presence into the world with a very loud scream.  What I would come to know is that le bebe is very sensitive to temperature fluctuations, especially those experienced during diaper changes.  Not a fan.  Hence, very loud crying.  

Most of the time he is a quiet little contented angel.   

But when he is unhappy with something, he definitely lets you know...along with all of your neighbors!

I will now commence with the dramatic tale of Troy's birth (okay, it's not that dramatic) so for those of you who just wanted to see a cute picture and skip the details, I would suggest checking out now.  For those of you who like the gory, yet abridged, story - here we go...

First, I have to give a little back story so everything makes sense.  I was 36 weeks pregnant when I went in for my regular appointment with the OB on a Thursday and she noticed that my blood pressure had started to rise.  So she ordered some blood tests for me and sent me home for the weekend with instructions to take it easy and come back in on Monday for a follow up.

That weekend, the family and I decided to take a little vacation and stay with my Aunt and Uncle at their cabin in Cypress Hills.  We had a fabulous time where I kayaked (not an easy feat. when you are grossly off balance) and even tubed (a nice slow ride with Russ).  We often joked to my Aunt and Uncle that I was so pregnant, I would end up having the baby right there at the cabin.  While it would have made for a good story, I am happy to say that I did not go into labour and we had a wonderfully relaxing time belly and all.

We came home and I immediately visited the OB who, after expressing some concern with my continued high blood pressure, very calmly and matter of factly finished with,"...and that's why I think you should have the baby this week.  How's Thursday for you?"  While I knew that an induction was possible and even likely, I didn't think it would happen quite that soon.  Nevertheless, we scheduled the induction and then frantically went on a shopping spree to buy all of the things that we needed that we had planned to buy in the next three weeks all in one night.

Thursday came quickly.  The induction was scheduled for 11am so we showed up bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to pop this baby out.  This was going to be a snap, right?  Not so much.  Apparently  there were a lot of women who were already in labour who needed more attention than me.  How dare they mess up my schedule!  But seriously...they totally did.  After 8 HOURS of waiting - I repeat, 8 HOURS of waiting, we finally got the green light to be induced.  Did I mention we had to wait 8 hours!?

Ken's waiting position

They broke my water and started me on the oxytocin drip which really got the party started and fast.  Within 15 minutes I was having regular contractions and they were starting to get incredibly intense.  Now with Russell, I had a six hour all natural labour but this felt much different.  So after about an hour of increasingly intense contractions, I asked for an epidural.  I tell you, once that epidural started working, I promptly gave Ken permission to fall asleep in the corner and nearly dozed off myself.  I say nearly, because I could still feel the contractions and they kept me awake.

About an hour and a half later, I felt a great amount of pressure down you know where and knew that it would soon be time to push.  I will say that it was strange not to feel that overwhelming urge to push like I experienced with my first labour.  With the epidural, I knew when I was having a contraction and felt pressure but I certainly didn't feel any overwhelming urge.  It was pretty strange feeling.

I yelled at Ken to wake up and 30 mins of pushing later, little Troy popped out and promptly started screaming as they placed him on my chest!  It was very surreal.  I could feel the emptiness inside that Troy used to occupy and felt incredibly liberated in knowing that he was finally out, I had my body back and a new little life to bring home.  It was amazing how alert and fully aware I felt in that moment - a feeling that I did not experience with Russell because I was just so damn tired.  I didn't feel like I was just hit by a bus, which was a pleasant surprise.  Not so pleasant was the fact that I tore down the entire scar line where I had torn with Russ.  Not cool.  Nevertheless, I had a beautiful, healthy baby boy which made the tears seem irrelevant.

Russ stopped by the next day and didn't really seem all that interested in holding the baby.  We had to bribe him with a game of angry birds just to take a picture!  Oh well, the boy sure sold it well!

Now we're home, enjoying this perfect little human being and Russ has really warmed to the little guy, bringing him blankets and soothers, teddy bears and even his coveted angry bird stuffy.  Now that's love!

Just think, I've had Troy at home with me for 15 days now when, if he chose to come on time, he would be due TODAY.  Thank goodness he came early!

-J