Dear Alice: It is a true testament to life with you and your sister that it’s now a day after your official two month birthday, and almost a week since you turned eight weeks old, and not only has there not been time to write a letter to you, but your birth story is still banging around in my head. But today, the first day of a new year in which you will morph from a flailing, smiling blob into a giggling, crawling girl, I promised you and me it would get done. Here, my sweet pumpkin spice loaf, is how you came into the world and completed our family.

October 31, 2008.

This day, it didn’t seem odd that it was rather uncomfortable to stand up. After all, Alice was was a week late, and I was aching and awkward. In the grocery store parking lot the day before, spasms of pain ripped down the fronts of my legs, and I collapsed to my knees, clutching the cart.

To say I wanted this baby out was an understatement.

This day, it was unusually sunny and warm for late fall, and the maple leaves on our front lawn reflected the brightness of the morning. Jen O., Eirinn and Avery came out for a little Halloween party, and we enjoyed a great morning painting pumpkins and decorating cupcakes. Jen knew I was miserable, and she and the girls were such a welcome distraction.

It was when we went upstairs shortly before noon to show off Lucy and Alice’s rooms that I noticed something odd. There was a tightening from across my lower back that ripped to the front of my stretched belly, and I immediately had to sit in the flower sheet-covered Ikea Poang chair in the corner. I wrote it off as yet another late pregnancy symptom.

But a few minutes later, another one came. When we were outside snapping photos of the girls giggling and careening around our giant inflatable pumpkin, yet another one. As Jen packed her daughters into the car, I mentioned I was feeling funny, and might have to call Eric. I can still see her excited face asking what I was feeling and wishing us a quick and painless (haha) labour before she drove away.

I popped Lucy into her booster seat — no longer able to run after her — and started some toast. I also jotted down the time (12:41) when another wave of tightening hit. In the middle of spreading Cheez Whiz, I had to write the time again (12:47). And again while pouring milk (12:50) and grabbing grapes from the fridge (12:55). I finally understood that I’d been having minor, sporadic contractions all morning long, but the paper in front of me showed a pattern.

This day, I went into labour.

This day was the one and only day I didn’t want to deliver. Even being a week late and desperate, it was really important for me to have Halloween to take Lucy trick or treating like I’d done the past two years. Eric, my Mom and mother-in-law all listed no-baby dates because of important work or church deadlines, but I had none until it became clear Alice was going to arrive later than we thought she was. And of course she came then.

First I called Eric, warning him something was up. He headed out to grab lunch.

Then I called my Dad, just a few minutes away, to come to the house to look after Lucy. Next came my Mom, at work in Aurora. Then Eric again, in the middle of chili and garlic toast at Tim Hortons: “You, um, need to come home right now.”

My Dad arrived first, and took over Lucy’s lunch while I paced the living room with my hands on my back, scrawling down the times of contractions. Lucy remained completely oblivious to what was happening (thankfully), too excited about Grandpa’s surprise visit. Eventually, I went upstairs to shower: Like with Lucy, I was determined to deliver with clean shaven legs, even if the rest of me that I couldn’t see (ahem) was beyond my control.

This early labour felt similar to Lucy’s, but more focused on the back as opposed to the front: The contractions started with a tightening at the base of my spine, and spread in ripples across my hips, meeting at the bellybutton.

Eric arrived when I was soaping up the first leg. You can see his appearance at 1:29 when he took over writing down the pains. “Now,” I called out as another wave started. I leaned up against the cool tile, the hottest water I could stand cascading down my back and legs. I hummed and mmmed through these early contractions, closing my eyes and already thinking of the epidural and heated blankets that awaited me at the hospital.

My Mom arrived when I was getting dressed, and soon my parents were packing up Lucy and Spencer Dog to head to their place. I had tears in my eyes laying out Lucy’s Halloween costume (a cowboy princess outfit consisting of a tutu, glow-in-the-dark wand, cowboy hat, jeans, bandana and pink sweater), so sad that I would miss taking her door-to-door. I took comfort in knowing my Dad was absolutely giddy to once again have a little girl to take trick-or-treating, and knew she would have a blast with him.

Eric and I were suddenly completely alone in a quiet house as Alice continued to crack me open to make her way out. I needed distraction. Badly.

I called the hospital to tell them labour had started, describing the contractions (around five minutes apart) while the nurse — ironically, eerily and happily named Alice! — listened to me go through a few. As I suspected, she advised me to stay at home a little while longer. We took up residence on the couch and watched TV, Eric continuing to chart the pains.

The whole time in labour, it oddly felt the best to sit through contractions. Everyone always says to walk and dance and roll and move through them, but my body wanted none of that. Standing up felt worse. I sat, legs splayed, belly protruding, arms out and braced, eyes closed rocking back and forth.

A moaning, painful Buddha.

The last entry on the worn sheet of paper recording the contractions reads 3:59. It was then that things changed — something inside shifted, my chest tightened and my temperature rose — and I knew it was time to go. Eric helped me get my shoes on, stashed the inflatable pumpkin in the garage (paranoid neighbourhood kids would take advantage of us not being home), turned off all the lights (the quintessential “no candy here” signal), and off we went.

Excited. Anxious. Scared.

The drive to the hospital wasn’t near as bad as labour with Lucy: Strapped into the seat was excruciating and claustrophobic, while this time it offered a small measure of comfort because sitting was what my body craved. But the pain. Ohdeargod, the pain at this stage was awful, like jabbing knives and snapping elastic bands from mid-back to mid-thigh.

We walked into the New Life Centre at the Port Perry hospital, and were ushered into the room I would labour, deliver and stay in. The ward was quiet; we were the only ones there.

My doctor was paged. I knew it’d be a bit before she arrived, and was told — to my horror — that only she could order the sweet, sweet, pain-killing, body-warming, smile-inducing drugs that I desperately wanted. So I unceremoniously stripped down in front of the nurses, and took up residence in the shower. There was a hard white bench inside, and I perched on it with the hottest water available cascading down on me. At this point, I didn’t care who saw me naked, or what I sounded like. Eric hovered outside the shower door.

Dr. Shepherd arrived, did an exam (the first, she said, when a patient was sitting in a steaming shower), and said I was almost 6 cm dilated. Despite the excruciating pain, I was incredibly proud of myself for making it that far drug-free. Also surprised to be so far along, as I’d been in labour less than five hours. I knew then that Alice would arrive quicker than Lucy’s 12-hour entrance.

And as with Lucy’s labour, all I could think about and demand was drugs.  I kept telling the nurses that I wanted them, the drugs, you know, the drugs, the big long needle in the back that makes the world glow, remember, the drugs, pleasegetmethedrugsrightnow? But one of the only downfalls of delivering in a smaller hospital is that the drug doctor is not always in the building. And at just after 4 p.m. on Halloween, he was not.

Dr. Drugs was on his way after a page from my doctor, and I immediately latched on to his arrival. After much pestering, Dr. Shepherd said he’d be there within six contractions. I didn’t care if she was making it up — it was the first time reference I was given for sweet relief, and kept me sane the next half hour.

I was never so happy to see a man in my life than when Dr. Drugs appeared, fresh from cutting his grass. It took another 30 minutes to get the needle inserted and the happy juice flowing, but after that the entire feeling in the room changed: The tension and stress left, everyone relaxed and started laughing. I got the heated blanket I’d been dreaming about, a raspberry fruitsicle, and settled down in bed to let my body continue it’s journey.

(Before Dr. Drugs left, I asked him to marry me. It wasn’t the first proposal he’d received in his career!)

Shortly after 7 — hardly an hour after the epidural — the nurses checked my progress. We were all shocked to discover the baby — still encased in the water sac — was, um, right there. One disadvantage of the epidural: I was feeling increased pressure, but had no idea Alice had descended so far.

The nurses told me to relax (I jokingly rolled my eyes and gestured at the drugs, telling them not to worry) and not to push. Everything from here on in was a blur: Dr. Shepherd was re-paged, the warming lamp was turned on, more nurses flooded the room, the bottom of the bed was dropped, charts were furiously scrawled on.

Suddenly, the doctor was there, my water broken, my legs were hoisted up (Eric on one side, a nurse on the other), and pushing began. This epidural was different than the one I had in Ajax: I could feel the tightening, but not the pain, of the contraction, and this made pushing much easier, and, I believe, the delivery quicker. Because just four rounds of pushing and 12 minutes later, Alice was born.

Eric says the cord was around her neck. Dr. Shepherd quickly slipped it off, and then she was there. Not twisting and turning inside me, but robust and wailing on my chest. She was pink and slimy and red and perfect.

And ours.

p.s.: It’s been neat to write this and go back and read Lucy’s birth story to compare the two. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and see pics here.

Possibly related posts:

1. Lucy’s birth story: Part 1
2. Lucy’s birth story, Part 2
3. Birth story pics
4. Life, lately, while in survival mode
5. Labour prep with Val. And lots and lots of drugs.