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Daddy Life 

Throw Away The Plan… It’s Baby Time

Joshua , ,

Our due date was May 14.

Was.

As it turns out, babies aren’t always all that concerned with due dates and plans and expectations.

Saturday the 28th of April was scheduled to be momma-to-be’s last official day at work before baby. There were clients lined up and she was ready to finish and relax for two weeks before baby.

But, Friday night Jess started to feel like things were happening. After a Saturday morning call to the midwife, she decided that she was going to try to work her day… so she went to the salon. During her first client though, she decided she couldn’t get through and asked me to come get her. So I hit save on the post I was working on for thereviewsarein.com and I left.

Note: Thank you to Trish for helping me finish that New Music Spotlight post and doing all kinds of work while I was away from my home office.

We came home and spent the afternoon in a mix of puttering around, sitting, napping, and Jess feeling increasingly uncomfortable. As the day progressed we started timing contractions (with the expectation that’s what was happening) and wondering if this was going to be the day.

As day turned to night Jess felt things happening more and more, and called the midwife some time after 9pm… and that’s when things really kicked into gear.


Here’s the full timeline of how things went starting in the earliest hours of Saturday…

Saturday, April 28 – 2am: Jess starts feeling uncomfortable and has trouble getting any sleep.

Saturday, April 28 – 7:30am: Jess pages the midwife, talks to the team, is told to hold tight as it’s likely the baby getting in position and her body getting ready.

Saturday, April 28 – 8:30am: Jess leaves for work.

Saturday, April 28 – 10:30am: Jess asks me to come get her at work.

Saturday, April 28 – 12pm to 9pm: Jess experiences contractions and we pack our hospital bags (more about that soon) and we get the condo as baby ready as we can.

Saturday, April 28 – 9pm: Jess calls the midwife and we make a plan to meet at the clinic.

Saturday, April 28 – 10pm: We meet the midwife at the clinic, Jess gets a quick exam, the baby is found to be breeched, the midwife calls Markham Stouffville Hospital to tell them we’re coming, we get in the car and go!

Saturday, April 28 – 11pm: Jess has had an ultrasound, the baby is in breech position, the decision has been made to have a C-section now, Jess is also 9cm dilated and the midwife can not believe how well she is handling active labour.

Saturday, April 28 – 11:30pm to Sunday, April 29 – 12:15am: Jess is taken into the room and prepped for her C-section. The nurses and doctors arrive and I am escorted out of the room (wearing the most attractive blue zip up hospital suit, hair net, and mask). The doctors and nurses get started and I’m allowed back in the room to sit on a stool beside Jess’s head.

Sunday, April 29 – 12:15am to 12:27am: Jess and I talk about how she’s feeling, how I’m feeling, about the fact that the baby is coming right now, and we try to figure a name for a baby girl, because we still don’t have one, and there’s a 50/50 chance that a girl is coming into our lives.

Sunday, April 29 – 12:27am: Our baby is born at 37 weeks and 6 days. He is 6lb 9oz, 19.5 inches long, and perfect. I’m invited to come and meet him, he is handed to me, and I carry him back to Jess so she can meet him. It is the most amazing moment of my entire life.

Sunday, April 29 – 12:30am to 12:45am: We sit/lay together while the doctors and nurses finish working on Jess after her C-section. Then the baby and I are ushered to the recovery room to wait for momma.

Sunday, April 29 – 12:45 to 1am: I stand, rock, sway, and dance with my baby boy in the recovery room while we wait for Jess. I sing softly, Dallas Smith’s Sky Stays This Blue and The Tragically Hip’s Wheat Kings as I try to process what has just happened in my life.

Sunday, April 29 – 1am to 3:30am: Our nurses and midwife work with Jess and the baby to make sure that everyone is doing well, momma and baby have a quick breastfeed, and Jess rests in the immediate aftermath of her first IV, first surgery, so many first things.

Sunday, April 29 – 1:30am: We start sending texts to immediate family with this message -> “Meet Oliver Jameson Murray. Born 12:27am. Mom and baby are both doing well.”

Sunday, April 29 – 3:45am: We get settled in the maternity ward room that Jess and Oliver will stay in until it’s time for us all to come home.

I stayed in the room with Jess and Ollie that first night, thanks to our nurse who was fantastic and told us that she wasn’t about to kick me out at 4am. I slept in a chair, Jess slept in her hospital bed, Oliver slept in his bassinet. None of us really got a lot of sleep, except maybe Ollie.

During the day Sunday we settled in together. Jess worked to feed the baby when he was hungry. We sent and received many messages of love from friends and family. We did our social media posts to spread and celebrate the news, and we had family time.

Jess’s mom came to visit in the afternoon and had the chance to hold and cuddle and love her baby’s first baby.

My mom and step-dad came in the evening, and they both took their turns to love on Ollie too. My mom also took a moment to take the first photo of Jess, Oliver, and I together.

Monday we did more of the same, more feeding, more loving, more resting when we could.

Tuesday, things were a little more stressful.

Oliver had dropped weight (which we were assured is normal, and in C-section babies it can be more than traditional births) at a higher rate than the nurses were happy with when he was weighed in the morning. We didn’t know how much, or what that was going to mean for our plans to go home, and I arrived back at the hospital to be with them around 10am. Ollie had also been started on a small bit of formula to supplement what he was getting from Jess when feeding.

Oliver was weighed again in the late afternoon and he had dropped a little bit more weight – which was a concern for the nurses (so it became a concern for Jess and I). Our midwife was contacted, and I was handed a bottle of formula and fed Oliver for the first time.

Jess continued to breastfeed Ollie and give him formula at feed times, and at 7pm our nurse explained that until Oliver was back up to a 10% weight loss or less (he had lost 12+%), he would be at the hospital.

It was hard to hear. Hard to process.

We both knew what the words meant. We both understood the concept. But we were both frustrated, tired, worried, and most of all, wanted to bring our baby home to start our new life together as a family.

That night our nurse let me stay in the room until midnight (I should have been kicked out between 9 and 10pm) and I held and cuddled Oliver while Jess tried to get some sleep between feedings. I felt helpless, I couldn’t feed him, I couldn’t force him to grow or gain weight. All I could do was hold him and keep him warm and love him. So I did.

Between midnight at 6am, not wanting to leave Jess and the baby, I did my best to sleep in the car in the hospital parking lot. I got a few hours in a couple different positions and spurts… but honestly, sleep didn’t come easy.

Then, at 5:58am Jess sent me this text -> “Update for Daddy: Weight has gone up!!! We should be going home!”

I didn’t sleep anymore that morning. And at about 7am I went back into the hospital to hang out with Jess and Oliver.

We sat, we fed, we chatted, and when the nurse came in and told us that we could start packing up to get ready to go home… I’m not sure I can explain the feeling that rushed over me.

Have you ever slept in and missed your check out time at a hotel? Do you know that rush you get in when you’re trying to pack up all of your things and get out?

I went through something like that. We were still waiting on paperwork, but we had bags packed and Ollie dressed, and I got ready to take bags to the car and bring up the car seat. It was all happening as fast as I could make it, but in some sort of half-speed slow motion at the same time.

We got everything together. We filled out all of the paperwork. We got Oliver strapped into his car seat and checked over by the nurses. And then we went downstairs.

Jess and Ollie waited at the door while I went and loaded up the last of the bags and pulled the car around. And then, finally, after what felt like forever, we loaded Oliver in the car, Jess got in the backseat with him, and we started driving home. Together. As a family.

It’s now Thursday, we’ve had our first night in the condo together. We’ve had Jess’s mom here to help and she’s been awesome, my mom came for a visit and that was awesome too. We are thankful already for the family we have and the support that we know we have from them.

And now it’s time for us to take the next steps in getting settled and set up.

Oliver showing up two weeks early wasn’t the plan. Jess’s C-section wasn’t the plan. Staying in the hospital for 3+ days wasn’t the plan.

But now we’re home. We have a healthy, beautiful baby boy, and we’re happier than we’ve ever been.

That was the plan.

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