The Story of My Son’s Birth
My son James Alexander Leaf Edgar was born into the world on October 15th, 2012. If his wild birth is any indication of what’s to come, he’s going to have a very exciting life!
Sarah had been getting some intense contractions and cramping over the past few weeks, and her belly looked like she was shoplifting a watermelon, all signs leading us to believe that James’ birth was coming soon. We were sure he’d come before his due date, even to the point of guessing he’d come two weeks early. So when day after day of contractions went by with no baby, I didn’t pay particular attention to Sarah’s early-labour-like contractions on Monday. After an afternoon nap, her contractions began coming back to back more steadily and we started timing them. Though they were intense, they were spaced too far apart and not lasting long enough to be worried about…or so I thought!
Sarah believed it was early labour, while I skeptically expected it to be false labour. Either way, we decided to go over to Sarah’s parents’ house since they have a nice jacuzzi tub she could relax in. She wasn’t even in the tub 15 minutes before she began to shout “My water broke!” and feeling like she needed to start pushing! A quick phone call to our midwife Fiona instructed us to get to the hospital asap with one key command: do not push!
As quickly as we could (which is not quick at all for someone who is about to birth a baby), we got into our car and left for the hospital. The traffic wasn’t too bad and I didn’t need to do any crazy driving in order to get there in good time. Fiona met us at the pull-up entrance with a wheelchair and whisked Sarah off inside while I went to go park. Thankfully I found a spot right away and sprinted as fast as I could back to the entrance doors.
As soon as I got into the lobby of the hospital, one of those terrifying moments where your mind freezes struck me: where is the labour ward?! I did actually know, and I could picture it in my mind, but in the heat of the moment I couldn’t remember if it was on the first or second floor! A total stranger standing nearby simply said “you need to go downstairs to get to ‘maternity'”. To this moment I have no idea if it was a man or woman who gave me those directions, or if they were a visitor or hospital staff or anything about them. I once again took off running and managed to catch up to Fiona and Sarah just as they were going into the maternity ward.
We went straight into one of the birthing rooms, got Sarah onto the bed, and started pushing. Literally three minutes later, my son was born! A beautiful healthy boy, 8 pounds 8 ounces, with super-light blonde hair just like his mommy and daddy when they were babies. I think I spent the next hour simply trying to regain control of myself; I felt like I was still in shock over everything just had just happened so quickly!
Our family hadn’t even made it to the hospital by the time he was born, and some of them didn’t believe us when we told them he was already here! In all, from the time Sarah started having regular contractions to the time James came into the world, only one hour had passed! Unbelievable! It’s a good thing I was at home that day or I might have missed the whole thing! I remember after Bella was born how I would mock the movies and TV shows that showed labour happening quickly…it never actually happens like that, I would say. Well, apparently it does!
I’ve had a million thoughts go through my head since our little boy has officially entered our lives, but those are for another time. Right now, I simply want to enjoy some time with my family and the tiny man who could hardly wait to get here!
Canadian Bible Guy 