I'm Here To Meet My Mummy

Picture it… It’s October 31^st, the spookiest evening of the year. You wake up from a faint sleep, and you can tell you aren’t in your own bed. You vaguely remember being wheeled into this room, but you were in so much pain the details of it are escaping you. You can hear Thriller playing on a quiet radio, and the beeping of a hospital monitor. In a daze you try to get up, but your head feels dizzy like you’ve been given something to sedate you. You try to swing your legs out of bed, but you can’t feel them. The previously dim room suddenly seems intensely bright, and you realize there is a surgical like lamp shining at you. Voices begin to surround you, but you are too groggy to pick out faces. You put your hands up to rub your eyes and notice you are hooked up to an IV. Even if you want to escape, you are attached to these beeping monitors. Your eyes focus, and you can see further down your body. There are strangers’ hands gripping your legs on either side of you, and at the foot of your bed holding an unfamiliar tool, is none other than Wednesday Addams. Her braids are resting near her white collar that’s peeking out over a smock. She snaps the glove on her wrist, like she is about to make a bloody mess. “Happy Halloween” she says with a smirk.

Do you have goosebumps? Sounds like the beginning of a fictional horror movie, doesn’t it? It’s actually a true story and describes exactly one of the happiest days of my life. So, pour a coffee, take a seat, and let me be an example of what not to do when you go in labor.

When my OB gave me my November 4^th due date, I laughed. “As long as I don’t have my baby on Halloween!” I joked. The smugness, the absolute delusion I had in that moment, thinking my child couldn’t possibly share a birthday with a holiday. I sailed through the beginning of fall, thinking my daughter was quite early. I’ll welcome this new bundle of joy around the 24^th. How cute will my newborn be in their fuzzy woodland animal costume. I’ll be healed up just in time to walk the neighborhood and show off our growing family by the 31^st. As the days got shorter and the air colder, I began doing all the things to send my baby their eviction notice to be out before the end of the month. I baked the date cookies, I lunged and squatted with my big baby in my arms on a mission to have a mid-October birth. In all honesty if the potholes on our street didn't shake this baby out I should have known my remedies were a waste of time. Mid-October came and went. The leaves started dropping, along with my expectations. The audacity to think I was the exception to the saying “the baby will come when they are good and ready”.  

My twin sister and I are a festive duo, and Halloween is our jam. We had baby girls just two months apart the year before and took full advantage of the endless group costume opportunities. This year was a classic. The orange and blue tuxedos were ready, and our father was clueing up the final details on our wagon-turned Mutts Cuts van. They would be the cutest little Dumb and Dumber you’ve ever seen. The 28^th rolled around and still no baby. My panic set in. I felt guilty enough that we were taking my daughter’s baby status away so suddenly, getting pregnant when she was only nine months old, now we may be abandoning her on one of the most exciting days of the year. All the remedies I tried to get this baby out the weeks before, I now regretted, and my priority had shifted to keeping this baby in. I was on self-prescribed bedrest until Halloween time. Meanwhile my baby was sitting there, plotting.

The night of the 30^th I fell asleep rocking my daughter in her chair. At 4:00 am, a subtle tightness appeared around my lower belly. I tried my best to ignore it and snuck out to bed. Another hour went by, and it happened again. This is the moment a levelheaded individual would nudge their spouse and give them heads up to maybe call in to work, arrange child care, put the go bag in the car. Not me. I thought I could somehow will this child to stay in for the remainder of the day, take my first-born trick-or-treating, and still have a laid back, epidural birth on November 1^st.

The sun had barley peeked over the trees when I called my sister to inform her that we were ready to go trick-or-treating…at 8:00 in the morning. The girls were still babies; nobody would expect them to come at night. The weather was great, and who knows what it will be like after supper. I was sure I sounded logical on the other end of this call.  “You’re in labor aren’t you” she said. The nerve of this woman to assume I was trying to pull a fast one. But yes. Yes I am. I started to sob. Clearly being a hormonal control freak I poured my heart out on how this was the only day leading up to my due date that I didn’t want to have the baby. I wanted to enjoy every minute of the fun and festivities with my little girl, and she would be devastated for me and her father to be taken away from her on Halloween. Keep in mind this child was one. She couldn’t yet form the phrase “trick-or-treat”, neither was she allowed most of the candy. She couldn’t have cared less. My sister reassured me that she would be there as soon as possible. Harry and Lloyd were about to get this party started bright and early. Meanwhile the pain was getting worse. I thought I should really lay down, get my feet up, and eat something before I was fasted at the hospital. Did I do any of those things? No, I did not. A few hours, that’s all I needed. Worst case scenario my sister could stuff me in the wagon with the girls. I clearly underestimated my circumference at this point. I was calm, cool and collected. I could get through much of this day without anyone catching on to how much pain I was in, and I don’t need to be laboring in the hospital when I could do it in the comfort of my own home…walking the neighborhood…towing a wagon...in costume.

My company showed up, and we dressed up our Dumb and Dumber duo. I tried to put on a brave face, but my sister saw right through my bullshit. I should have taken a tally on how many times she told me to go to the hospital, but my mind was made up. So hurting and headstrong, I gave some neighbors the heads up that we would be showing up after breakfast. Ignoring my sisters common sense logic, I waddled out my door unaware that the next time I walked through it I’d have my baby in my arms and not my belly. The only smart decision I made that day was not putting on face paint. Picture a very stubborn, very round woman towing a Mutts Cuts van with two blissfully unaware babies in their tuxes and top hats. I was buckling over every ten feet, leaning on patio rails while kind, concerned neighbors filled their buckets and wished me luck. To this day I wonder if anyone looked back at their ring camera footage, to see me crouching in agony, just to pop up to life with a smile on my face the second I hear the doorknob turn. I could manage if I did these visits quickly. I was timing it right; breathe – knock - watch the girls light up in excitement - say thanks - and waddle back to the car before the next contraction starts. People labor for days sometimes. This is fine. Everything’s fine. Who was I kidding, this is Newfoundland, these visits were bound to get longer. While sitting in the kitchen of an elderly man who likes to chat, helping him set up his wifi, I felt a pain that was intense enough to grasp the table and shout. Ok, time to go. At this point I’m not just pushing through the pain, I might be pushing out a baby on some ones front porch. I packed Lloyd Christmas in the car seat and headed to my parents house to drop her off.

When I walked in, I was hit with the smell of hotdogs cooking and realized I hadn’t slowed down enough to eat anything yet that day. I was famished. So instead of saying “I am in active labor, someone call my husband”. I stuffed my face with food and gave nobody this information. Many minutes later during hot dog number two (or maybe three, don't judge) my sister grumbled that I would soon be in active labor, and I really should head to the hospital. Before I had the chance to swallow my food to tell her, that in fact started happening quite a while ago, water was splashing onto the floor. Total chaos ensued. My mother resembled the old IKEA commercial. “START THE CAR!” My husband showed up at the house, unaware of just how close we were to welcoming our new baby. I told him we had plenty of time to stop by our place and change out of his work boots. We did not. I rolled my eyes at all the madness, as my first had been a breeze. I can manage a hard pain every few minutes and get that epidural the second I walk through the doors. Delusional me, still thinking I would be walking by the time we got to the hospital. What I wasn’t taking into account was the fact that I was already at the hospital when my water broke the first round. I had been admitted there for days. I didn’t know what a contraction even felt like until this day because my epidural was hooked up before my painful labor had even begun. What is that saying? Oh yeah… “YOU GANNA LEARN TODAY!” 

By the time we got from Arnold’s Cove to Come By Chance, my husband had heard more language out of my mouth than he had in the previous 20 years of knowing me. To hell with the epidural, I wanted a tranquilizer dart straight to the behind! Twice I heard the blinker for his signal light to pull over and call an ambulance, convinced I was going to calf on the side of the TCH. Each time I yelled “DRIVE!”. I had just wrapped my head around giving birth today, I was not about to push my child out on the floor of my ford explorer. All I could picture was my face on NTV news with the caption “Mother delivers her own baby at Irving, and names him Morris after the Goobies moose.”

Emergency lights flashing, we pulled into the hospital parking lot like Bo and Luke Duke. I remember feeling like it was windy because my hair was blowing away from my face, just to open my eyes and realize I was already inside and my husband was running with me in the wheelchair down the hall. Frowned upon, but necessary. I could hear the nurses we had just the year before say a friendly “welcome back”, but my eyes were squinted tight by the time we got into the room, and they would stay that way until I was minutes from meeting my baby. The more familiar voices I heard, the more relief I felt that I had vetoed my husbands request to dress as Randy and Mr Lahey for Halloween. Although I was just a skin coloured tank top and a cheeseburger away from totally nailing it.

Silly me, I thought I could waltz in there and request an epidural for my pain. Turns out there are many things that must happen before you get that option. Things that require you to stay extremely still. Fabulous. If they needed me still they may as well knock me over the head now. They offered me a shot that would “dull the pain” while I waited. A cheap drunk they called it. An epidural pregame. An appetizer before the main course of numbness to my entire bottom half. Outstanding, I’ll have four. One was enough, too much when I look back on it. Dull the pain it did not, however it did make me completely incoherent. I couldn't string together a simple sentence to answer any medical related question, but had no trouble explaining proudly to an unlucky individual that I would have both my babies on a Big Mary Monday. Not my best moment, although this was not a day of good decision making for me so far, why finish it off making any more sense to the rest of humanity. While I moaned and groaned over what felt like a vice gripping around my abdomen I was taken to the labor bed, traumatizing innocent strangers in the hall as I did my best exorcist impression.

While the angels on earth they call labor and delivery nurses rolled me like a rotisserie chicken, hooking up all of the things, the love of my life walked through the doors. Not my husband, I’m referring to the anesthesiologist. My personal favorite employee at the hospital. Very talented man, slow walker though. The magical shot they had given me was a cheap drunk indeed, which meant I couldn’t sit up to have it administered. So here I lay on the bed in the fetal position, trying not to move while the knitting needle jammed into my spine. Side note, we are in an age where pop stars can go to space, why must this contraption be the length of my forearm? I digress, it is amazing, highly recommend. Between sleeping in the recliner the night before, towing a wagon all morning, that mystery shot of the roofie like substance, and my newly numbed womb, I was due for quite a nap. I don’t think the anesthesiologist was out to the hall before I was sound asleep. But remember, I have been secretly laboring since 4:00am, my time of rest was running out, and I soon had work to do. A lovely travel nurse was tasked to monitor my bedside, while I napped and spoke gibberish nonsense about God knows what. The poor woman. In my defense, they gave me the shot of bravery juice to the hip, and what happens after that they were responsible for. Usually when you get assigned to labor room bedside duty, you have some time. It’s a waiting game of watching monitors and asking about baby names. Lucky for her, I had been an irresponsible nitwit who ignored my labor signs and put off coming to this hospital until my child was on their way out to greet us. She wouldn’t have to wait around much longer. When she realized this, the emergency button on the wall for backup was pressed and she encouraged me to do a “practice push”. Valid for a mother who had not given birth just a year before, who is many minutes away from actually pushing a baby out onto the bed. I told her I didn’t think it was a great use of our little time. Nothing prepped, no OB, none of the torture – I mean delivery tools needed in case things get dicey. She insisted, and like I said, I’m essentially under the influence. FAFO. I bared down and gave it a go, just to hear her yell “STOP STOP!” That may have been the only thing I was right on that day, but I don’t blame her for not listening to me considering my track record. She is now realizing just how long I put this off.

I felt weak and flushed so I lay back and close my eyes, as the dim room fills with voices. It was the start of several fainting spells I was to have that afternoon. When I woke the gang was all there and ready. The staff had just finished participating in their annual costume contest, and I wasn’t really giving them much time to get changed. A real treat for most patients to see, however I was in and out of consciousness, and certain I had passed away and fallen to my unfortunate demise. The image of Wednesday Addams catching my baby boy with the Monster Mash playing in the background is a memory that will live with me forever. That’s right, our little pumpkin was a BOY. Our son is about to turn three and is proud to tell everyone his first Halloween Costume was his birthday suit. I'm sure he will recreate it in his teenage years. No, we didn’t name him Addams, but he will forever be the best little treat I’ve ever gotten on October 31^st. So if you open your door on Halloween and see this little trickster with his bucket full of candy, be sure to wish him a Happy Birthday.