As our family celebrates P’s birthday, I took a few moments to reflect about the day he was born. His big brother S once said to me, “Mommy, it’s not fair. How come P was born in a car and I was just born in a hospital?”. So with the birth of our new blog, Milk and Confetti, I’d like to share P’s birth story.
I was 33 weeks pregnant and I was up all night trying to get relief for my back pain while my husband was snoring, blissfully unaware. Apparently I was in labour but I had no idea. I have been asked how I didn’t know I was in labour. Maybe I could say that I didn’t have much experience as I only had 1 other baby and I had characteristic breaking of the water that time so I knew it was ‘Go time’ as per my “From Here to Maternity” book. But being 33 weeks pregnant, I just wasn’t in the mindset that my baby would be arriving anytime soon.
So hubby gets up to go to work and sees that I am not doing that great. He suggests that he drive me to my parent’s place as there is no way I can take care of S all day by myself while he is at work. As our family was heading to the garage, hubby strapped S into his car seat, and as I was heading to the car, I felt things weren’t right. I wanted to call EMS. I wanted to lie down. It just donned on me that I was going to have a baby. Like RIGHT NOW. Hubby told me he could get me to the hospital faster than EMS could get here. There was no time to argue, as I felt like a bowling ball was going to drop out of me, so I climbed into the back seat with S.
Hubby drove. My support team consisted of S and his beloved stuffy ‘bear bear’ constantly asking me how I was doing. Not good my friend, not good. I remember we were approaching a red light and hubby was slowing down. There were no cars around, it was very early in the morning. So I may have screamed at him to run the red light and he may have run a couple of them enroute to the hospital. But as promised, he got me to the hospital.
Okay, sigh of relief. Now to get me to the maternity floor. There are no wheelchairs at the front entrance. AHHHHHHHHH. So hubby unstraps S from the car seat and tells me he’ll be right back.
So, it is just me in the back of the CR-V. I really couldn’t wait anymore so this nurse delivers her own baby in the car, right in front of the hospital. He was tiny, I held him in my right hand. He was quiet. With my left hand I am trying to rub him to get him to cry, make noise, do anything. AHHHH. Then I am looking around the car to see what I can use to tie the umbilical cord. Then a few minutes later, hubby come back with a wheelchair. Thanks honey. SURPRISE!
Hubby goes back into the hospital to get help and the crew from Emerg help me out of the car. Baby and I get separated and I ask the nurse “did I have a boy or a girl?” In our time alone, I hadn’t checked that out yet! I had a boy and today, my 4 pound preemie is 4 years old!
Happy Birthday P!
