Hello everyone, apologies for the enormous amount of time between posts! Life has been somewhat crazy since our new one has arrived. It’s hard to believe he is already 6 months and 3 weeks old. It feels like just yesterday he was born. Out of all of my children, this little man was the craziest and he has the most interesting birth story of all, when he grows up. I have a feeling this post is going to be long!
August was born in Santa Monica, California. I was cleared to fly at 35 weeks to go on vacation, we have another house in Malibu so we wanted the kids to have one last trip before baby arrived. However on the flight to LA, I started having a lot of contractions on the plane. Some to the point where I actually thought I might have him. When I got to LA I saw a midwife and they said under no circumstances would I be flying home. They couldn’t even believe that I had been allowed to fly in the first place. I of course had to have all my blood work done again. I contacted my midwives in Canada and they sent over all of information.
So here we are in our house in the hot Malibu sun, which is under renovation and everything is torn apart. I’m talking, no kitchen, one bathroom with a shower on the other side of the house. Which is no fun at 36 weeks pregnant, having to run across the house at all hours of the night, While experiencing contractions. Hoping that the contractions would lessen and allow you to get to the bathroom. This part was all fine, my kids and husband are amazing and we just made do with what we had! Then it set in, that everything we had for baby was all at home in Canada. So I ordered our car seat, stroller and everything else that we would need. I was literally receiving packages everyday. I have included some photos of our view from the house, our kitchen that we used for the time in the house. The worst part…..
One night the kids came racing in saying some weird bug was on the ceiling. They took a picture of it and when I looked I screamed “That’s a scorpion”. My husband jumped up, grabbed a broom and killed it. We ended up having a total of 4 of them in the house over our stay. This was only because of the work being done, they were coming in through the holes in the floor and walls. We also had a mouse in the house, that would dart around at night. A rattle snake outside of the house, as well as owls, a fox, deers and coyotes. Yup the Malibu mountains are full of wild life. However the view, the peaceful sounds, it’s almost like you are in a constant state of mediation while outside. I would often go outside at night and just stare at the ocean and stars. It just calmed my sole and kept me sane through all of this craziness.
When the workers were doing work on our master bathroom, they ended up cutting some wrong cords and it shut off our air conditioning. It was so hot and horrible, I was miserable. It ended up getting to 87 degrees in the house. I was getting sharp pains in my side, horrible contractions and August hadn’t moved for almost 5 hours. I could not keep my eyes open, I just kept falling asleep, I also had a fever. I called the midwives and they told me to come into the hospital. We thought I was In labor, hubby actually ended up damaging the bumper on the corvette on the way to the hospital. He was so worried about me, he didn’t even stop to check the damage. He came off a curb when we were leaving the gas station and the bumper hit it coming down. It ripped a part of the bumper out of its place. We got it all fixed though!! Once we got to the hospital, they got me all checked in and said that I was super dehydrated and that the heat in the house was too much and not healthy for me. Hubby ordered an air conditioning off of Amazon while we were in the hospital.
After being in the cool hospital for a few hours and having some tests run, they said it was okay for me to go home. I had also felt August kick and I could finally relax and breathe easier. I had to make sure I kept my fluids up and stayed cool. With the air conditioning it was much more manageable. But I will still in a great deal of pain, my back hurt so bad it made it hard to walk. My feet and legs were so swollen I could barely even get my flip-flops on my feet. I won’t lie, I was straight up miserable. I don’t even know how my family put up with me, I know I was grouchy and not so nice to be around. It was also tough being away from my mom and friends, I missed everyone and just wanted to be busy so I didn’t focus on all the uncomfortable moments.
Then comes delivery day! I had a regular midwife appointment on August 9 at 2:00pm. We went into the appointment and I stressed how much pain I was in and pretty much begged to be put into labor. My midwife checked me and I was 3cm dilated, She did a sweep and told us to hang around Santa Monica and not go back to Malibu. She said if my contractions started getting bad, to go to the hospital. Let’s just say I was completely unprepared, by the time we got to the elevator of the office, contractions started. I have babies very quickly, so this was a huge concern that he would come in under an hour. Hubby and I went over to the grocery store and picked up snacks and waters, slippers and anything else I needed while in the hospital. Of course I had to get an ice cream cone, all the while contractions were getting closer and a little more painful.
I asked hubby to take me over to the water front down the road. It was gorgeous, palm trees all over, beautiful grass, the ocean, benches. We started heading over and I started breathing super heavy and may have yelled a little. At this point he said “sorry babe, you’re going to the hospital”. He then pulled a U-turn and we went to the hospital…….
Being me, loving you 