Baby #2- The Birth Blog- We're Gonna Need A Bigger Net! (Part 3 of 3)

If you have not read Part 1 please do so here

Also, you obviously need to first read Part 2

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.

 

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.

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!

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?

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)

Best part of not having a creature growing inside of you? It's on the counter!

 

 

Baby #2- The Birth Blog- Two Births In, Two Major Pool Fails (Part 2 of 3)

If you haven't read Part 1 you can do so right here

Upon leaving the hospital around 1:00pm and heading home, we did not even make it one floor down in the hospital before Colleen started having contractions. This caused our daughter, Squishy, to become quite stressed and while she may not be able to form sentences and still craps her pants, she did understand that her Mommy was in pain. Squishy felt that she could help her Mommy by rubbing her arm and holding her hand, which was super cute. Although, I speak from experience when I say that that would probably only work before so long as shit was about to get real! On the way from the hospital to our house, the contractions only intensified as did the sound effects emanating from my wife. Ever the parrot, Squishy took this as her cue to copy her mother and the next thing I knew I had my wife with her very real contractions happening in the passenger seat and my toddler in the back seat letting out equally terrifying sound effects as she mimicked her mother. Naturally, I took this as my cue to stop at the McDonald’s drive-thru on the way home because who doesn’t want a little Rotten Ronnie’s if they are going to be buckling in for a possible afternoon pregnancy?

Once we got home, we quickly put Squishy and her newfound contraction sound effects down for a nap and gave our doula, Kelly, a call. We then headed down to the basement where we had set-up the inflatable birthing pool in the middle of our living room along with candles and other accessories that made it feel like a cross between Dracula’s castle and a cheap airport rub-and-tug.

Background update: In regards to the pool, anyone who is familiar with the first birth story know how that played out last time and what a fucking disaster it was. This time around, we made sure that the hoses were hooked up properly (ahead of time) to fill the tub and that there would be no hiccups. Well, that was the plan at least. The day prior, Colleen and Kelly had noticed that there was a small hole along one of the seams in the tub and that it was leaking air. We had brought it to the attention of Sabrina, our midwife, at the hospital that morning and she stated that she would try to procure a patch for it. Alas, it did not appear that it would be too big of an issue as it looked like a really slow leak.


Anyways, getting back on track…as we got set-up in the basement reality started to set in pretty quick. Our doula Kelly arrived, and we were quickly on the phone to our midwife explaining to her that shit was getting real in a hurry. Sabrina arrived shortly after 2:00pm and by this point I was already filling the pool with water. Unlike last time, most of the water was managing to find its way into the pool, although there was that one problem of the leak. What seemed like a small/insignificant leak with no water or pressure was quickly escalated by adding water to the tub. In true Moreau birthing fashion, neither our midwife nor us had a patch kit. As the tub was being filled and Colleen was screaming/agonizing through her contractions, I frantically searched for anything that could be used to patch the tub. Not surprisingly, we all discovered that I am the only male over 18 in the entire world who does not own duct tape, and the only patch kit I could find in our garage was for an inflatable raft and it took 12 hours to properly work. Judging by the sounds my wife was making, I was not sure we had 12 minutes, let alone 12 hours. All we had in the patch department were some larger Band-Aid’s, which worked about as well as one might imagine.  

Husband, Father, Rubber-Armed Pump Boy.

Upon realizing that the pool was not going to stay inflated, I was quickly given the job of “Pump Boy”. In between contractions and almost having my arms ripped off by my wife, I was tasked with re-inflating the walls of the pool with a manual hand pump that qualified as the closest thing to working out I have done in the last five years. Yes, there was a good chance that by the time my daughter was born I was not going to be able to hold her because my noodle arms were too gassed out from pumping up the tub. Around this time, I probably prayed that this baby came quick because if this was going to be a long birth there was a good chance that we were going to have to hire a backup “pump boy” on Indeed.






Oh Man, it's about to get so real! (Or she is thinking about all the sleep she is not going to be having)

NEXT TIME....PART 3, MY CHILD WHO DOES NOT LOOK LIKE MY CHILD IS BORN!

Baby #2- The Birth Blog- Who The Hell is Braxton Hicks? (Part 1 of 3)

Well, it has been almost two years since I last used my keyboard to do anything productive (unless online shopping and researching toddler YouTube videos counts).  Alas, here we are. My wife has been nagging asking me for some time to document the birth of our second child. Here I am, now a father to two beautiful baby girls who look like they were born to two completely different parents attempting to recall the exact point in time where what little free time we ever had completely vanished in to thin air.

Yes, Colleen and I now find ourselves asking the age old question…how in the fuck did we ever complain about “how hard it is” with just one kid?! This really makes me appreciate Jon Gosselin more than ever. That man truly was a national treasure.



Still not too sure how the human body does this. Terrifying.

Anyways, steering back on track, for those who have not read my previous blog on the birth of our now two-year old daughter Squishy, you can do so right here. I will warn those of you that are familiar with that story that this one was not nearly as much of a clusterfuck. There was no flooded kitchen and no midwife fainting in my wife’s nether regions. There was however a water birth at home, a pool malfunction, poop, and the standard blood bath just to name a few of the elements at play. So without further adieu….

Here are some quick background facts on this birth to cut out some of the back-story this time around:

• As with the first gremlin, we were planning for a drug-free home birth.
• The plan was to again have a water birth.
• There would be midwives and a doula involved again. I resisted against paying for a doula, but as with most arguments, I lost.
• We knew we were having a girl but there was no “gender reveal party” this time. We kept it a surprise for just about everyone. Everyone, except for the 10 or so people that I accidentally slipped in a “she” too when discussing our unborn child. Dad fail. In addition, writing the words “gender reveal party” makes me feel like less of a man so hopefully I never have to do it again.
• Fake names have been given to the midwives and doula. Bonus points if you can figure out what television program/movie the three names come from.

October 13, 2018 started out like any other day….the birds were chirping; our almost 2-year-old daughter Squishy was demanding us to put on an endless loop of nursery rhymes on YouTube a mere ten seconds after she woke up; and my wife, Colleen, just happened to be a week overdue with our second child. By this time Colleen was ready to get the baby out of her as she had been experiencing something called Braxton Hicks for a few days which I just assumed was doctor speak for “this baby needs to get the fuck out or I am going to kill you all”. Thankfully, there was a non-stress test/check-up scheduled at the hospital that day where our midwife would be performing the not-so-subtly-named sweep on Colleen. For those not in the know, a sweep is exactly as it sounds. The midwife just gives your cervix the old hand job in hopes of sweeping the baby into action. Sweep. Sweep. Sweep. Sounds like fun!



Possibly the last photographic evidence we have of our now "easy" life with one kid.





As Colleen was liable to pop at any minute, our daughter Squishy and I accompanied her to the hospital for her lunchtime appointment. Once there, Colleen underwent all her necessary tests and had her sweep (last time I use this word I promise!). I was tasked with keeping our other child alive, which presumably was not going well as she kept dropping her food on the hospital floor and then eating it. When one of the nurses saw this and looked appalled she told me I should probably not be letting my daughter do this as those floors were, well, they were hospital floors. I did not have the balls to tell the nurse that I had already let my daughter eat an entire lunch buffet off the floor by that point. As all the hospital stuff was wrapping up, our midwife Sabrina and the doctor were both fairly certain that Moreau baby number two would be coming that day as Colleen was four centimetres dilated. What exactly this means I do not know. However, I did understand that a baby possibly sliding down the old birthing tubes today was a very real possibility…..



"Hey Dad. Throw my mafuckin' Cheerios on the floor so I can eat them up and show this unborn baby how tough I am."

NEXT TIME: POOL PARTY!!!!!!!!

Should We Include Water Wings In The Birthing Kit? (The Birthing Story: Part 1 of 4)

So I have not written in a blog post in a few years. In fact the last thing I wrote about was my engagement to my now wife/baby mama/woman who lately keeps putting this strange tasting milk in my fridge in little bottles. In fact, that series of posts was much better received than any of my travel pieces, so I should have been writing romance novels the whole time. On that note, if this seems like it was written by your 6-year old nephew who sticks crayons up his nose and eats glue off of Popsicle sticks during arts and crafts time I apologize. 

Having said all that, I am approaching ten years of blogging and am looking to head in a new direction. Life has changed greatly (and for the better I might add!). Gone are the days of months-long traveling expeditions, sleeping in hostels with a bunch of white people with greasy dreadlocks, and drunken nights in exotic locales. Alas, now I am an old-married man who loves nothing more than sitting on his couch with his amazing wife, beautiful daughter, Netflix and dog, Milo, who has a strange fascination with humping any blanket that has a cheetah or leopard print pattern. I’m going out on a limb here, but I think he failed sex education.

Not gonna lie...this one took a few takes

Over the next couple of blog posts, I will attempt to capture the magic (pretty sure that was what my wife was calling it while she was cranking a baby out of her hoo-ha) of the recent birth of our lovely daughter Adeline. I will attempt to leave out the most graphic stuff, but hey if I was able to stomach it, I’m sure you can too.

So, where to start? Well, nine or so months ago I looked at my wife and the next thing I knew she announced, “I think I’m pregnant”. Actually, I am pretty sure that she said “I know I’m pregnant”. I will forever remember this night because we happened to be about the town that evening and all my wife was concerned about was buying a stick to piss on when she got home so that she could prove me that she was in fact “with child” as the sophisticated people say. Well, wouldn’t you know it but we came home and the next thing I know the two of us are hovering over a little piece of plastic in our bathroom that my wife just happened to relieve herself on.  And that my friend is where babies from. This led to my wife crying tears of happiness and me standing there in shock looking like someone who just invited ALF and E.T. to a dinner party and actually had both of them show up. This was of course all verified by a highly trained medical professional in due time. Yes, it would seem that parenthood was imminent.

***PEE STICK VIDEO BELOW ONLY SEEMS TO BE PLAYING ON DESKTOP COMPUTERS! SORRY***

I will not bore you with the too many details about the next nine or so months. The quick version goes like this:

- My wife’s belly grew (if she asks tell her it was hardly noticeable)

- We spent a lot of money on maternity clothes that she never wore

- We spent a lot of money on baby clothes that my daughter will probably never wear and baby accessories that she will probably never need or use

- Gender reveal (yes, this is a thing!) and baby shower parties were had

- Photos were taken

- A doula was hired (I will admit I had no idea what this was prior to this)

- The decision was made to use a mid-wife instead of a doctor

- Many appointments were had with said mid-wife

- I made frequent trips to the store to buy very specific things that my wife would crave (salsa runs at 11pm anyone!?)

- Milo would get jealous of the unborn child and deposit feces around our living quarters

You get the idea.

Who doesn't love a good baby shower?!

 Somewhere along the way the decision was made by my wife that she wanted to have a homebirth. I thought this was something that was only done because people couldn’t get to the hospital in time. Nope, it’s a REAL THING I was informed.  Now I know most people associate things such as homebirths to the pioneer age or maybe to the more “granola” types (of which Colleen is not), but we were told that it was perfectly safe and in the event that anything were to appear abnormal with the pregnancy and/or birth we would be immediately taken to the hospital. The decision to have a homebirth is one that everyone seems to have an opinion on, so we did not tell too many people beforehand because every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks because they watch Grey’s Anatomy they are medical experts. Newsflash: If you work in a grocery store give me tips on buying produce, not on birthing matters. Sorry, rant over. 

By the way baby...did we tell you about our birth plan?

OH YEAH…AND DID I MENTION WE WERE PLANNING TO HAVE A HOMEBIRTH IN WATER!? WITHOUT DRUGS! Here I was a mere few months removed from believing that no baby could ever possibly be born anywhere but a hospital.  Next thing I knew I was mapping out space in my living room for an inflatable pool. If anyone is feeling really brave just go watch some water-birthing clips on Youtube (and those are the ones that are safe for public consumption).

If Vegas had set odds at the beginning of our pregnancy that my wife would want to birth her child at home, in an inflatable pool, and drug-free I would bet that the odds would have been somewhere in the 10,000 to 1 range. And that’s probably low-balling it.

And with that we waited. Our birthing kit was set, the inflatable rental pool was on standby (think a larger, more durable kiddy pool), and the nursery complete.  Now we just had to wait for the tiny human…Well at least I imagine they feel tiny coming out. Isn’t that right ladies?

Thanks for taking the time to read and I hope you enjoyed it!

~Brent~

NEXT BLOG: The birth of a baby!