Please allow me to preface the following blog post by stating that there are no words, expressions, or experiences when regarding your first born kid!
I am still elated at the fact that I am a father of a beautiful baby girl
Elated is an understatement. Is there a way to describe Disneyland to a 6 year old? Or how about illustrating why dogs do that thing to your leg to a 5 year old? Or how about describing why a honeymoon is important to a… er.. nevermind
All I am saying is, it is the biggest inside joke phenomenon ever! Outsiders won’t understand it, but those before you smile and ‘get it’
Sure you hear the words, ‘how long was labor?’, ‘how much did she weigh?’, or ‘are you getting enough sleep?’. But those words are just words, until you are fully immersed into how they those words are attached to their respective meaning.
The goal wasn’t when Micah was born, nor was the start where the intial contractions occured. No, I know that this is a lifestyle, and parenting is not something where we check in and out. My pastor always says, “I don’t know if you are a good man, until I see your grandkids”. It’s not about the instance, but about the generations. Having said that, I would like to back up for a bit and talk about how radiant Danelle was during her pregnancy!
She was a sight to behold! Throughout the 3 trimesters they were defined by characteristic milestones in our life. The first Trimesters we actually travelled a lot with baby! We went from Calgary (to watch the Canucks game), to San Diego and LA, and capped off the travelling with a SHABANG in New York City!!
The second Trimester was characterized with our nesting phase. We mentally and spacially got everything ready for baby when she was ready to pop out!
The third Trimester, Danelle embarked on a project that, to me, superceded, anything a post-partum soft cover book can offer. It brought with it a wealth of experience, gleaning from mothers that have gone before us. Some mothers just newly acquainted with their little one, to mothers with the rich knowledge of their flock. Danelle would ALWAYS come home with a huge smile on her face while working on her projectAlthough she wasn’t able to ‘finish’ up her project, via the blog, she has been working on other things to blow everyone out of the water!
I’ve asked her many times, “are you going to miss being pregnant?”, easy to say that in the moment without holding onto baby now. But in all honesty, her answers always blew me out of the water.
“To be able to witness and be the only one to know when my baby is moving, hiccuping, or kicking – is an experience I will always miss. Nothing will every be able to replace that. Even though other things will come and share that spotlight, I won’t be able to feel that intimate connection in that way again.”
Wow.
Maybe dudes are missing out?
Needles to say anymore, pregnancy was one journey we would love to do again and again!
The whole labor and hospital process was very long. We were there for close to 7 days after Micah was born, and without a laptop, weren’t able to communicate to the outside world for a whileIn the middle of our stay, I sent out an email to our family and friends to give an update on what was going on, just so they knew we didn’t drop off the face of the earthSo instead of re-writing everything, here is the email (if you want a more detailed description of what when on, ewww, just let us know (I don’t know why you would want to, but just let us know) and we can fill in all the child birthing details):
Danelle woke up with cramps on Thursday morning at 3am. Contractions all day ranged from hold your breath uncomfortable to tearfully painful. The contractions also kept faking us out from being as close as 2 minutes apart to 45 minutes apart. The unpredictability was not fun
The contractions finally were 6 mins apart for a good half hour, we then drove to Women’s hospital at 1am. The contractions by this point were not causing Danelle to stop what she was doing at that point and focus mentally on minimizing the pain. When Danelle was assessed at 2 am (23 hours of labor) she was only 3 (out 10) centimetres dilated. WHAT?!?!
I was 3 cm dilated!
So of course they asked us to walk it out. The next 6 hours the contractions began to become more intense and became more frequent. They ruptured Danelles water to get things going. By 9am Danelle was 5 cm. and was now starting Active labor (increasing labor pains). The pain became unbearable by 11am that she needed to use laughing gas. From 11am to 4pm the pain was SOO much that I don’t recall Danelle openning her eyes anymoreAlthough we had our reservations, I couldn’t see Danelle like that, so to relieve her pain we opted for an epidural.
They missed 3 times. How do you miss 3 times? word to the wise – NEVER let a Resident Anesthesiologist administer the epidural (just my opinion). By 4pm Danelle was so exhausted she fell asleep and slept through 30 mins worth of contractions. The attending physician was then called down to administer the epidural and it finally worked!
The actual pushing lasted for 1.5 hours, which was pretty good. All you soon to be/future fathers out there – there are simply NO words to explain this miracle process. So that’s all I will say about that!
Micah Maui was born at around 9:00pm on June 11th. However after the deliver Danelle wouldn’t stop bleeding. They eventually proceeded with a DNC on Danelle, which from what I understand was a procedure that need to scrap the inside of the uterus out. Normally the uterus would deal with all of that after deiivery, but after such a long labour, we believe that the uterus was just overworked to keep going
Enter the next day. Thinking that we were able to go within hours. Our doctor, in passing, noticed that Micah had puffy eyes. With no concern in her voice, she thought to be on the safe side and asked to go ahead for a jaundice test.
After the results were back, our nurse whisked us away, literally in the matter of 10 minutes, transferred us to another room, explained to the new nurses about what is going to happen, took our baby, and put her into an incubator. She then told us of some of the risks, such as brain damage and hearing disabilities. Wow… scary? Micah underwent aggressive photo therapy to try to bring the jaundice down. No one spoke to us about what was happening until after the whirlwind, and that is when the nurse told us that we were at a high risk stage. So Micah needed to be in there for as much time as possible, meaning we could only breastfeed for 30-40 mins out of the incubator every 2-3 hours or so. No cuddle time, no playing time. IT SUCKED.
I know that Juandice is common in newborns, but she wasn’t even a day old and we weren’t even able to hold her anymoreIt was very difficult for us. Especially since mentally we were preparing to go home. After 9 months of imagining and anticipating what the dream would be like – this was obviously not part of that vision
SO after almost a week we are finally home and trying to amalgamate the dichotomy between the life that was Ral and Danelle with the brand spanking new Nicanor Family! Here are a few more images I was able to snap:
Her first bath!!!!
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