moments with melissa: The Day We Met Sweet Emilia

"A baby fills a place in your heart you never knew was empty" ~Unknown

The day I got to meet my sweetest Emília was probably one of the best days of my life. It was a day filled with so many different emotions and until this day, still feels so surreal.

It has taken me a while to write this because I don't think I could ever find the perfect words to express and explain how elated I felt the day I went into labour. I know there is a stigma around labour and fearing it, but truthfully, I embraced every aspect of labour and found it all quite rewarding! Call me crazy I know!

Days leading up to her arrival; get ready to laugh!

My due date was June 23, 2019. The few days leading up to the birth of our baby girl literally felt like being on a roller-coaster. One day I was happy, next minute within that day I was crying and didn't know why. I was literally doing everything to help with the birth. I was doing acupuncture, yoga, gong for walks, EVERYTHING! And still nothing happened. It started to cause me so much anxiety because I was so ready to have this baby and the anticipation was killing me. I started to feel inadequate, like something was wrong with me - why wasn't this baby coming, she should've been here by now, what am I doing wrong. Saturday rolls around. We went out for the day to the Calgary Farmers Market. My husband asks me what I wanted for lunch and I literally broke into tears crying in the middle of the food court saying I didn't know what I wanted and to stop asking me questions. Yes I know my poor husband, but don't worry it gets worse...for him haha. We spend a few hours there try to walk as much as possible to help with maybe encouraging labour. We come home, nothing. Sunday finally arrives, the baby's due date. I wake up feeling excited and saying to myself...today's the day! Something felt different however. I wanted to be alone, I wanted nothing to do with anyone but of course this would pose an issue in a house where your mom and husband are both in your space! My attempt to isolate myself was to play games on my phone. But of course it wasn't really accepted by my husband because he felt I was ignoring him; especially after he made the effort to make us a wonderful breakfast. I remember he asked me to go to the table for breakfast and I did...but with my phone still playing my game. Well this didn't go over well - LOL - and he expressed that he made a nice breakfast and just wanted to have a nice breakfast with me so for me to put my phone away. WEELLLLLLLLLL, this didn't go over well! I turned my phone off, started bawling and shouted "stop telling me what to do, I don't need another father in my life". I left the table and stormed up to our bedroom, locking the door behind me, laid in bed and cried. Logically, I didn't even know why I had reacted the way I did or why I was even crying but then as I sat - still crying - I knew why...it was my due date, everyone said baby would be early FOR SURE, but they were wrong, I had convinced myself of something that I had ZERO control over and now I felt I had failed or was doing something wrong. WHOA talk about hormones am I right haha! I will not forget texting my acupuncturist sharing my feelings and she sent me a message telling me "girl you are having this baby any day. Many times women face a very emotional few days of unexplainable tears just before going into labour". I welcomed what she shared but deep down I was like, yeah right another person giving me false hope. I am NOT believing her! And at this moment just gave it up...I finally got ready for the day and just said, I didn't want to talk about labour or anything!

She's Coming!! Definitely some guaranteed laughter in here plus a happy moment!

Okay you guys 8am on the dot I wake up from being in the best sleep of my life worried I was peeing alllllll over the bed. I shot up, placed my hands between my legs - as if this would stop the 'pee' - and ran to the toilet. My underwear fell to the ground and I quickly realized my water had definitely broke! I started giggling, but almost in relief that this might be it, she may be on her way! Wait a minute...where's Kurt? He would've followed me to the bathroom if he was here! Great, now what! Had to put my hands between my legs again and back to the bedroom I went - no husband - grabbed my phone and ran into the tub. Guys truth: I was doing this because I was so worried to dirty our new light grey carpet! Kurt hadn't put plastic down to look like a scene from Dexter haha. Called him, he was out for a walk with Luna, he rushed back and got right down to...putting plastic down in our bedroom covering the precious carpet haha. Midwife showed up around 10am checked me, said my water had only partially broke, but that I was about 5cm dilated. I went about my day...yes guys I went about my day. I had NO contractions at all, all day! Around 4pm the midwife came back and said I was essentially 9cm dilated and broke the rest of my water, she gave me this magic drink to help move things along. We took the dog to daycare, we stopped for a coffee, we came back home and went for a twenty minute walk. When I left my house for the walk my contractions were about 6 minutes apart...when we got home something inside said "go hide in your room" I literally turned all the lights off, closed all the blinds and it was then that I finally was getting contractions; they quickly were at about 3 min apart!

Midwife made her way over and the second she did, I was ready to head into the shower and was in active labour with contractions. I was in the shower for a short period of time until my midwife felt I was ready to get into the tub. Within minutes of getting into the warm tub, I was in transition and on my way to pushing. In total, my pushing lasted about an hour and forty minutes and my entire labour was 5 hours!

Sure enough at 10:19pm our little miss Emilia Maria was born and in that moment of seeing her I was speechless. I didn't know what to do but look at her in awe that I waited 9 months for this moment to hold her in my hands and finally see what she looked like! My husband was very emotional and was in tears, but for me I didn't get a chance to have my emotions flood in until the morning when I woke up. I held her in my arms and just cried saying to my husband "she is so cute". Nothing could ever compare the feelings and rush of emotions I had the day Emilia was born. It was, and still is an unexplained experience. It is something that has no words good enough to describe it's true feelings.

It's crazy to think how your brain could shut out all the pain from labour, but that moment you meet your child is a memory that can be replayed over and over again as if it had just happened every time you hold your baby.