Monday, February 28, 2011

Relax I'm a NINJA...!

Well if thats not a great start to any birthing experience, I'm not sure what is. In a time of understandable uncertainty & heightened emotions, Nothing is more relaxing than a 'NINJA'
(explanation will come, I promise)


This is Colin by the way (to clear possible confusion)
Ok, so first I think its only fair that I apologize for not having any contribution this far on how things played out on the day Ashton arrived. I've been taking some heat for not making a post, however in my defence, deep down I knew it was important to me to land this post exactly on the 1 month milestone.

It has been 1 month today,
It all started with a bump in the night, or more of a rough-nudge-in-the-very-ridiculous-early-morning... "I think I'm in labour ?!".....
BOOM, I'm awake.
My alarm hasn't been that effective ever in my life. Lucky for me (with permission) I also have the ability to sleep nearly on command, as we're still currently nowhere near daylight, and things are just starting to progress.
I got up for work now as usual, to confirm that today probably wasn't a good day to go into the office.
Well if you know me at all... then yup, I dragged her 'labouring' to work so I could make sure things were all squared away before we spent an unknown period of time at the hospital. No urgency for these Mundy's, this is old-hat.

Arrive at the hospital, pouring crazy rain, we park as far from the door as possible (cause we had a free pass)... now 10 steps, 1 minute labour, 10 steps, 1 minute labour, 10 steps... did I mention pouring crazy rain? or the 'one-man' umbrella, not quite big enough for the 'three' of us. The rest is a damp trip upstairs for check-in/ triage.

Thank God, They kept us... nothing worse than being sent home at this point. It was a great relief to know that we'd be able to start settling into our (heck-yes) private room!

Now this is where 'my' NINJA arrives, I say 'my'... because, she made my day!
Sporting purple streaks & a graphic tee... "Relax I'm a Ninja"

The Midwife arrives.
In my head, "heck-yes, thats fricken awesome!", the un-professionalism was amazing in such a situation.
Having a baby is one of those times in your life, when you can't really be sure how things are going to happen. With so much confusion and uncertainty about everything. However at that moment I knew that no matter what was about to happen, it was going to be Awesome!

In all seriousness though, besides the purple streaks & graphic tee, I couldn't have asked for a better experience for Kandis. I'm not sure how much of that excellent care and attention was due to the difference in having a midwife, or how much was just because her 'particular' midwife was fantastic. Her midwife had the ability to really understand the things Kandis needed to hear & how to help make the experience the best possible for her. I know how much that understanding support had helped Kandis. It in turn also helped me knowing that Kandis really had the help she needed.
Labour & delivery is a helpless time for Dads, powerless to help, and unable to really truly even understand how this is a physically possible event. I can say the midwife also made the whole experience for me much more comfortable, by being able provide the support for Kandis that I am unsure how to provide, and have no control over. It truly did help relieve many of the worries that are so un-controllable and reduce the feeling of helplessness.
Not only did we have a great midwife who did a fantastic job, But we had a RAD midwife!
All you other midwives should be jealous, cause she was B.A.!

Our afternoon was filled with snacks & labouring... and the odd Starbucks run. Really once things came time to pushing, somehow it managed to be quick and... (nope not gonna say it, I know better than that). This time I agreed to cut the cord, which I hadn't done in the past. I know it was important to Kandis, so I managed to over come that feeling of taking scissors to my wife and now barely born Baby. I'm glad I did, as it's just one of those things you'll never know what it feels like until you've done it.
Welcome, Ashton William Mundy (and holy crap so much hair). Once again overwhelmed with more feelings than you've ever understood possible until you've had a baby. Surprisingly with the same intensity as each baby every time. For us this is 'Baby Makes Five'.

To complete the timeline would require an overview of the next 24 hrs, tried to sleep on and off, alternating with Kandis. It was a pretty typical first night.
Then somehow without warning....
Student Nurses everywhere, everywhere, everywhere..!
Not just new nurses, but actual 'stupid-people' student nurses. Seriously, frustratingly stupid people calling themselves nurses everywhere. I wouldn't have trusted 95% of them to babysit for me.

With that being the only negative, I'd have to say Welcoming Ashton was overall a great experience. If I could give any advice, Find yourself a RAD midwife.

Happy 1 Month Ashton!

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