In between all of the pumping, contractions, candles, and
tribal music we did manage to get the tub filled and Colleen found herself doing
the no pants dance by 2:30pm in a tub in her living room surrounded by Sabrina,
Kelly, myself, and the secondary/backup midwife Jill who had arrived by this
point. Once Colleen was in the pool her labour/contractions started to slow
down and her pain also decreased. I vaguely recall Sabrina asking her a couple
of times if she had wanted to get out of the water and I am pretty sure that
Colleen stated something to the effect of “I am not getting out of this tub.
Step away, bitch”. So yeah, the water helped with the pain and it appeared to
give my wife who normally only swears at our yappy sewer rat dog the ability
to curse like a sailor.
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| Tough job being the "supporting partner". Just throw out a generic "you're doing great honey" every so often and you're covered. |
With labour/contractions going full bore, somewhere along
the way (as is customary) in our births Colleen’s bowels let loose in the tub and
it was time for Pump Boy to put on his second hat and turn into “Poop Scoop Boy”….
Background Update: A
couple of weeks prior to this date when we were assembling our “birthing kit” I
had been tasked with purchasing a poop net. A poop net is really just a little
net that you use when you need to scoop out dead fish from your aquarium. On a
trip to Wal-Mart I purchased the only net I could find that looked like it
might, just might, be big enough to scoop up a tadpole. When I had arrived home with
this Colleen insisted that I needed to buy a bigger net, which turned out to be
a brilliant decision. As instructed, a few days prior to the birth I visited an
actual pet store and bought a slightly larger net. I really wanted to scare the
cashier and tell her what the net was for, but alas my dog has had his haircut
at this facility and I did not want to be labelled as “the guy who buys nets
for human excrement from the pet store”.
….Anyways, getting back on track, I quickly used my
regulation size poop-scooping net and swung into action. Having been a veteran
of this type of work, I found that my form was much improved from the last time
and the water quality and clarity was not far off from your average YMCA during
a parent-and-tot swim listen. I have now added Pump Boy and Poop Scoop Boy to
my resume in case you were wondering.
Sometime around 4:00pm my mother-in-law showed up to get our
daughter up from her nap (happening one floor up) and she wisely escorted her out of the house on an
excursion. I imagine if Squishy had walked into the basement and heard those
screams she would never let Colleen tuck her in again. Thankfully, my
mother-in-law and daughter got out when they did because by 4:35pm Colleen’s
water broke.
From this point on things progressed in a hurry. I remember
Sabrina and Kelly telling Colleen to just do little pushes because they wanted
to “slow things down”. Colleen’s reply: “SPEAK FOR YOURSELF”! The midwives
followed up by telling her that they wanted to limit the damage (see: tearing)
to which Colleen replied “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT”. Yes, the beast was officially
awoken! Somewhere around this time, Colleen also decided to bite my arm
attempting to power through the pain, but alas, I was too terrified to say
anything.
Within 5 minutes of her water breaking, the baby’s head was
starting to emerge and Colleen in all of her delirious pain decided that she
now wanted to raise her bottom half out of the water. The ever calm and awesome
midwives gently instructed her to keep her ass in the water as once the baby is
partially exposed you cannot go back in the water with her at that point
(science lesson for another day). They managed to keep Colleen’s caboose in the
water and before we knew it the baby’s shoulders were out and then BAM(!) there
she was, our beautiful new blonde baby daughter, Emerson Rose Moreau aka Emmy aka Squishy Jr.! If we
ever go to sell our home, I imagine the two home births can only serve to drive
up the value.
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| No words needed here. |
The most pressing issue when Emerson was born was ordering a
paternity test. I mean, shit I look like Bert and Ernie’s gay love child and
our first daughter was born with black hair and Eugene Levy eyebrows and then
out comes the whitest, blonde-haired, fair-skinned baby ever. However, once I
heard that shrill cry I knew she was our daughter!
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| I took Grade 10 science. Pretty sure that qualifies me to do this medical procedure. |
Obviously, it goes without saying that we were ecstatic and
love our daughter more than I could ever convey in a blog. Life has been crazy
since that time. Emerson is now almost three months old, Squishy has
turned out to be an amazing big sister and Colleen and I are still alive. Yes,
parenthood is phenomenal. Sleepless nights, crying children, poo-splosions,
temper tantrums, cracked nipples (mine are just due to dry skin). What more
could one want? What was my life like before this?
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| Couple of good looking babes (especially since one just gave birth within the last hour and the other was living inside of her not long before that). |
P.S. Props to Colleen for being such a strong woman and
powering through this. Two natural births is nothing to sneeze at. Also, she is
a fantastic mother and wife.
P.P.S. If anyone wants to never sleep again we filmed the
whole thing. It features a few “the Office” style looks at the camera from me,
including during the arm-biting incident. The nightmares provided by watching
this come at no charge.
Until next time, stay classy people and as always I thank you very much for reading. The positive (and dickish) feedback is very much appreciated. Much love,
Brent (and Colleen, Addy aka Squishy, Emmy aka Squish Jr., and Milos the fur-brother)
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| Best part of not having a creature growing inside of you? It's on the counter! |
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