Caveman Babies Part two: Delivery day

In the last post on this topic we had a brand new little bundle of joy and I was pretty sleep deprived.

Two months old and already looking at me like I'm crazy

Now Gwendolynn is two months old, we're still sleep deprived but things are beginning to settle into a bit of a rhythm. We're getting to know her, she's getting to know us and we're a happy little family.

I promised that today I would talk a little bit about our experience with the delivery. I remember getting to work and only about an hour later I got a text from Megz asking me to call. I know from the moment I left the apartment that something was going to happen today. The day just felt surreal.

I called in and megz told me she thought her water broke. Needless to say I was shortly on my way back home.

I got home and pretty much as soon as I got in the door Meghan started having contractions. We called my folks and her folks and headed into the hospital. We got to the hospital and were admitted and sat around for a couple of hours waiting for a doctor to show up. During this time Meghan's contractions went from five minutes apart to two. The Doc showed up, check to see if her water broke, told us it hadn't and sent us on our way telling us to come in when it gets to be too much.

We decided to go down to the garden in the front yard of the IWK and have lunch. Both our families were there and we were happy to have everybody together so we hung out and had a picnic all the while Meghan's contractions were back up to five minutes apart.

After about two hours of hanging out in the garden with no major changes Megz figured she wanted to go home to get a bath. My Sister wisely suggested she go back up to get checked first. So we went up, re-admitted ourselves. The nurse showed up into our room and said to us, and I quote "It's your first baby so you'll probably be here a while but I might as well check anyway" and proceeded to check Meghan's cervix to see if she was dilated. Her very next comment was "Oh my, I'm going to break your water now and you can start pushing!" It's a good thing we didn't go home.

Little gwennie only minutes old and mom looking amazing

We went to the delivery room, they were going to find Megz a wheel chair but she insisted on walking down the hall herself. Stopping along the way to have a contraction, which were now one minute apart without complete breaks in between. We got into the delivery room, it was Megz, her mother, me, the doc and a student nurse. I'll never forget how amazing Dr poirer was that day. Meghan's water had not yet broke even though she was fully dilated, so Dr Poirer got out the amino hook broke, her water, sat down in front of her and said "Ok girl, do what feels natural". 15 minutes later we had a beautiful baby girl.

Now on to the Caveman aspect

Meghan became my hero that day...

I am one proud poppa

I knew with our Paleo diet and super fit lifestyle, birth would be easy compared to most, but Meghan really amazed me that day. From the first contraction to full delivery took just under six hours. Meghan pushed for all of fifteen minutes. Afterward, it was less than an hour and Meghan was up and in the shower giving me some time to get to know my little angel.

If you read my last post on the topic you know that Megz continued to go to the gym as per normal. As the pregnancy progressed she stopped pushing all out in her workouts and began more to concentrate on being able to breathe her way through the workout. She claims this was why she did such an amazing job during delivery, She states that doing so allowed he to control her breathing and remain calm in in control during the whole delivery. Only once did she state that she was scared. I gently reminded her that this is exactly what nature intended for us. That was all she needed.

As I stated earlier, she only pushed for fifteen minutes. This I largely attribute to her having a decent squat going in. In fact if anybody were to tell me that they were thinking about getting pregnant I would advise them to learn how to squat properly and as heavy as possible. I have no doubt that all the muscles involved in pushing out a baby are the same as the ones used to move a heavy weight up from the bottom of a deep squat. Once the doc said push, it was only a few pushes and one primal scream later and we had an amazing little girl who is today, at two months old as healthy and as happy as can be. But that's the topic for Part three.

The whole delivery experience was amazing. Megz herself will tell you it was the most incredible thing she has ever experienced. There is much to be said for attempting to live life close to how evolution has intended.

Daddy's little girl for sure