Alice Rena McCartney

Don't read this if you don't want all the gory details!!

Around 10 p.m. last night I went to bed with Kate.  She was a little restless and I was exhausted.  Around 10:30 I felt something - it felt like a punch that was trying to escape between my legs.  I was drifiting in and out by this point and it jolted me.  I continued to lie there wondering what the heck that was.  I ignored the voice that said get up and put on a depends, your water is going to break.  And about five minutes later me and the bed were covered in amniotic fluid - bummer.

My first thought was one of frustration, no, not now, I'm tired, I need to sleep.  I reached for the phone, paged Ken and informed him that I was lying in a pool of fluid.  He moved Kate to her bed and I went and stood in the shower, continuing to gush.  I phoned Antoinette and told her that my water had broke.  Antoinette had agreed to take Kate when I went into labour.  Next I phoned the hospital, they asked me a series of questions and then said they'd like me to come in and get checked.  I was hoping that they would tell me to come in once my labour had started, but no dice.

Ken packed a bag for Kate and delivered her to Antoinette's.  I had a shower and then Ken and I packed my hospital bag.  We set off for the hospital - there was a lot of snow.  We got to the hospital about 1 a.m.  I was immediately hooked up to a monitor and put in triage.  Next more questions.  They didn't seem to have any medical info about me - none.  I didn't understand this, oh well!  Once they knew I was hoping for a vbac the conversation changed slightly.  I knew I needed to go into labour on my own, so when my water broke and I didn't have any contractions I thought, great, this is Kate all over again - at least this time the fluid was clear.

They continued to monitor me, and told me they weren't loving what they were seeing.  Great!  Next the ob came to check my cervix.  She assured me she wasn't trying to grab my tonsils and informed me that my cervix was located in Barrie.  (Barrie, Ontario is about a thirty minute drive north of Newmarket which is where I was)  Great!  Next they brought in the monitor to check the position of the baby.  Three weeks before this I had gone for an ultrasound to check size and position.  Size - BIG, position - head down.  So I wasn't concerned.  However, the baby had flipped and was now breech - bye bye vbac, hello c-section number 2!

I wasn't excited about having another c but I'll say this, there was some relief because at least I knew what to expect, I'd been through this before.  I was told that they'd deliver the baby after the two other women that were now in the middle of pushing had delivered.  Ken slept in the chair beside me and I tried to sleep.

I don't remember the time they took me into the operating room.  I walked over, dripping fluid the whole way - so elegant!  Next step, epidural.  I wasn't concerned.  The epidural with Kate was awesome and the guy who did it got the spot in ONE try.  I don't remember it hurting, just mild discomfort.  This time - YUCK!  They guy froze me three different times and went through four needles.  He couldn't find the right spot, he kept digging around sending pains shooting down the left side of me.  YUCK!  Just before the fourth try I said a little prayer asking Heavenly Father to guide his hands, and guide them HE did because that's when he got it right.

Next all the prep, then finally Ken could come in and then we waited.  The ob was very excited about getting to announce the gender - something she doesn't get to do very often any more.  Ken and I were expecting a boy - just because that was the feeling that we had...  So at 5:15 when they pulled the baby out and announced it was a girl we looked at each other and laughed!  We watched them clean up our little girl, she was poked a little, weighed, measured and then wrapped up and handed to Dad.

I was wheeled into recovery and got the shakes - really bad.  After a bit the nurse said that the best cure for the shakes was to hold the baby.  It did calm me down.  And we latched and then we were moved into a private room - yay!  Things were fine until I started barfing.  I barfed on and off for a couple of hours, not good.  Finally that seemed to subside and I could again hold and enjoy my new baby.

Alice Rena McCartney
8lbs 11 oz    20.5 in
Monday, February 21, 2011  5:15 a.m.
Newmarket, ON

Welcome to the world little one!  We're happy you're here.

Last Day of Work

Today was a weird day, and I knew it would be.  My school is big.  There are about 700 students and 60 staff members.  This past year I was teaching music and only music.  I taught 15 different classes, one grade 4, three grade 5, one grade 5/6, three grade 6, three grade 7 and three grade 8 classes.  (And if you added it up you're right that's only 14, there was a grade 2 class that I saw once every few weeks for one period of character literacy)

I was less vocal about my pregnancy this time around.  I waited ages to tell the kids and I guess some classes I didn't necessarily announce things - and of course kids don't always hear what you say anyway so I still had kids in the last week saying - I thought you were pregnant.  There were a number of teachers - that although they knew I was pregnant didn't realize that today was my last day.  One teacher asked me if I was going to teach to March Break, to which I replied I was due in two weeks and wanted a little break!

The most popular question of today from staff was - are you so excited to be done?  Answer - I feel a mixture of emotions.  The most predominant is exhaustion.  I just want to go home and get organized - nest, pack my hospital bag.  And I feel overwhelmed thinking about being Mom to two.  AND I feel slightly sad to say goodbye to the kids - most of them anyway.  I like what I do and I really like the kids I teach and yes I am thrilled to be off for a year, to be home with my favourite kid plus one!

I walked out of the building today having left my room completely organized.  I just need to finish off a couple of notes for my replacement and I can start to enjoy a little break before the real work begins!

Pregnant

What to say.  I'm tired, I'm huge and lately I'm thinking it's a boy.  I'm ready to not be pregnant but not ready.  I'm planning to teach until the 18th of February, report cards are done but I need to get everything ready for the LTO and quite frankly I'd just like a week off, have lunch with a friend, do some shopping, hang out with Kate.  I'm 8ish months pregnant.  The official due date is March 5th.  I can't believe we're going to have TWO kids!  EEK!

PIGTAILS!

Someday I will have to learn how to do Kate's hair... for now I will continue to enjoy it when Antoinette does her hair!

Ken's Birthday Card

I love cards... I love giving cards and receiving cards.  I love spending hours (okay not so much anymore) looking for the perfect card for someone.  I didn't get Ken an anniversary card last month... he got me one.  He didn't care.  For his birthday I meant to get him a card and then I didn't quite get around to it, then I had a stroke of genius! 

I had found a $5 bill doing laundry and cards cost around five dollars and well...

Ken Turns 31... oops no I mean 32!

A few days ago my sister asked me how old Ken was turning, and I declared that he would be 31 - the stinker!  The next day I was relating the story to Ken and he looks at me and says, I am 31, I'm turning 32.  So does age matter?  Sure there are times when age matters but in the middle years I think it all blurs together... not the point of this blog post though...  the point - HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweet KEN!!

Last Saturday when Kate woke up and I told her it was Saturday she said - birthday party?  And I thought that's funny.  Today when she woke up and we told her it was Saturday she asked the same thing, and today it was true.

After wanting to go out for breakfast for Kate's birthday and not going we decided to go have birthday breakfast for Ken.  We drove up to Alliston and went to the Sunset Grill - a very yummy place to have breakfast.  We enjoyed our breakfast very much!  My plan was to document everything for the whole day...

After breakfast we went home for family nap time.  After that we went in search of Ken's birthday present.  We drove to Richmond Hill and went to Canada Computer.  There Ken purchased something "that has no practical value".  He bought head phones.  He loves his head phones. 

I didn't take a picture...  next we went to the hospital to see Dad, he's back in the ICU.  I didn't take a picture.  From there we drove north trying to decide where to go to dinner.  At some point Kate fell asleep.  We finally decided to eat dinner at Boston Pizza.  Ken stayed in the car with sleeping Kate while I went inside and waited for a table.  (Finally, I remembered to take pictures!)

I like this picture of Ken! 

Part of me wants to delete this picture into digital oblivion but hey I'm 8 months pregnant so I should look round... right?

Ken enjoying his birthday brownie and ice cream.

So as with the theme of birthdays this year, nothing too exciting but all in all a nice day together as a family!  I love you Ken you are such an awesome father and husband.  Thanks for being born!

Kate is TWO!

To have a party or not to have a party...  I went back and forth many times about whether or not to have a friend party for Kate.  She still doesn't really get parties - maybe a little more because of how often we read "If you give a pig a party", but I wasn't sure if it was for her or me and considering how tired and pregnant I am, the whole party idea just never materialized.  I'm pretty sure that we'll do one next year...

SO!  Kate's birthday was a Saturday.  I told her every day all week long that it would be her birthday on Saturday.  We decided that we would all go up to Alliston for my ob appointment and then we would go out for breakfast - perhaps go to the zoo and just take it from there.

I took this photo before we left for Alliston.

Before we left for Alliston Kate had a snack - a banana and apple juice I think.  Ken and Kate dropped me off at the hospital for my appointment and then went and got gas.  As I was sitting and waiting my cell phone rang.  It was a slightly frantic Ken.  Kate had barfed all over herself and he was trying to clean it up and her up and we didn't have any blankets, she didn't have a change of clothes and he was running out of wipes. 

My ob sent me out with a hospital sheet but by the time my appointment was over and I went to meet Ken and Kate in the parking lot, Kate was mostly fine and Ken had the van roasting so Kate didn't notice she wasn't wearing a coat.  At this point we didn't know what to do.  Going out for breakfast no longer seemed like a good idea... so what to do?  We decided to go home and see if Kate would be feeling better later.

On the way home we drove through Tim Horton's so Ken could get breakfast and Kate declared she wanted a bagel so we got a bagel with cream cheese and she ate half of the bagel on the way home.  We watched her and she kept it down.  She didn't seem sick, but we still didn't know what to do with her!

After getting home she had a bath, was changed and then we had a family nap.  After the family nap the day was mostly over.  We decided to open presents.

Kate was given a Woody Doll, a Jessie Doll and...

the DVD Cars.  The Woody Doll and Jessie Doll - huge hit, the Cars DVD, not so much!

After that we decided to go see my Dad, who is out of the ICU. She was given some very cute clothes for her birthday from her Grandma and Grandpa - she especially loved the ELMO card.  We visited for a little bit and then left to go home.  On the way home we went to Kate's favourite grocery store - the Foodland in Schomberg.  She loves the train mural inside the store. 

We didn't ever get around to the cupcakes and the singing of Happy Birthday on her actual birthday so instead we did that on Sunday.   I had all these dreams about what kind of cake to buy - when I was thinking about doing a party... in the end vanilla cupcakes, a la Betty Crocker, with homemade butter cream frosting, tinted pink.

Kate really enjoyed the frosting, but wouldn't even try the cupcake!  All in all a pretty ordinary birthday for our sweet Kate. 

Happy New Year!

It was such a nice mild day that we decided to go to the zoo.  There weren't very many people there so that was fun too.  We should have hustled more in the morning so that we would have gotten there earlier, then perhaps poor Kate wouldn't have lost it - she was so exhausted, but hey we had a really fun time!

Happy New Year everyone!  Here's to hoping that 2011 is a happy, healthy year!