So Much Life Still Left to Live

I have selfishly taken a couple weeks off of my role as executor. Mainly as I needed a mental break after the house sold and there weren't any large outstanding decisions to make until now. Time keeps trucking along and my Mom's ashes or cremains, as I learned this week, still need to be buried. We were delayed in burying them as I was sent to Mount Sinai so soon after her funeral. The timeframe for her burial is mid-August when my BC-dwelling brother is home for a friend's wedding.

As I looked at the calendar last week, I realized I had to get moving with the plans. My currently indesisive brain is having a hard time making decisions about everything, including plots and headstones, but also what to make for dinner, when to go to bed and how much caffiene to drink in one day. A couple of nights ago, I was sorting through Mom's seemingly endless piles of pictures that have taken up residence at our house with lots of memories of moments in time flooding in. While driving Ava around for a nap the past couple of days, I have had time reflect on my mom's life and some of our crazy times together. After reflecting on her life for a while, I often think about the things she didn't get to do yet and the life she still had left to live.

Sights Unseen and Memories Left Behind

Mom and I talked about travel a lot. I was fortunate to have parents that liked to travel and took us places as soon as they could. My Dad was UK born and bred and we often travelled to England as children to see the Chapman side. Since becoming an empty nester, my Mom loved going down south with her friends and was always looking forward to her next adventure.

We talked about where we would go if we won the lottery, dream trips and places we wanted to go one more time. One of our last conversations was about travelling, she was discussing everyone's travel plans for August, both of my Aunts/her sisters were headed on separate adventures. She was disappointed she didn't have any plans to travel in the near future. In mid-November, I finally accessed her email amongst all those spam-like emails I saw an email from Trip Advisor reminding her that she had added a Dominican resort to her favourites list. I opened the email and saw that it was also recommending other resorts for her. It made me sad, especially as I pulled out pictures of previous family trips and trips she went on with friends earlier this week.

My mom was a saver and very resourceful economically; some would call her frugal, but she better suits resourceful. She would put aside any extra money, which was difficult for a self-employed single mom, for a rainy day or an exciting adventure. When she saved enough for her trip she made the most of every day on vacation, from sun up to sun down.. Dave has lovingly dubbed vacations I plan as "Sheena Chapman" vacations because we have something planned from the second we step off the plane. This need to soak up every minute of vacation has definitely been inherited from my mom.

I started a small travel bucket list of my mom's dream travel destinations when I was in the hospital, but never finished it (and don't worry Dave, I am not planning anything).  Lately as I go through photo after photo, album after album, I am reminded of the conversations we had about places we would go and what we would see. My heart breaks when I realize she will never ride the banana boat again in the Dominican Republic, see the sunset over the harbour in Tobermory or wander the car-free and care-free Island of Mackinac Island eating ice cream and watching the world go by. She had so much more life to live and so much more to see and do.

My hope for my life is to share this beautiful world with Ava and teach her to appreciate other cultures, learn history through seeing and doing and value how fortunate we are to live in Canada (a beautiful country and one we need to see more of). I hope that when I ultimately pass, she isn't left with a list of places I left wanting to see but an album full of beautiful memories our family shared together with a couple of Disney trips thrown in for good measure.

Mom (at the front) excited for the banana boat. Her laughter was the best part of the ride!

Mat Leave Life: Full Force ....loading now!

It's been a while. The words stopped flowing over the winter as we dealt with snow and everything that went along with selling my Mom's house and all of her estate business. Winter consisted of: snow, trips to Erin to clean out the house, more snow, Christmas, New Year's, swimming, more snow, trips to Erin to prep the house for market, appointments with the bank, more snow, house on the market, mild spell, follow-up with the bank, house sold, snow, Salsa Babies, swimming, snow, bank appointment, waiting for closing date...

Spring all of a sudden showed up and days seem to be speeding by, The house did close and I have been left a little lost. My job as executor/executrix (whatever you want to call it: person who gets to do all the paperwork, running around to the bank/lawyer, following up with the bank to make sure they did the thing that they did wrong three weeks ago and said they would fix but didn't do it right...I'm not mad still about that RBC but maybe a little) is slowly winding down. Thank goodness I have been off though. I don't know how executors do it while working!

Mat Leave Life: Full Force

Since getting out of the hospital, taking care of Mom's estate has been at the forefront of my brain. I am finally trying on this mat leave life with full force. Mom friends have told me not to count down, BUT I have roughly 17 weeks until I return to my paying job. With these 17 weeks, I am hoping to fit in as much maternity leave fun as I can because, to be honest, I feel I was a bit deprived of some of the experience. 

The biggest trouble I have at the mom and me programs is relating to the other mom's. Mat Leave Life: Full Force, as it's usually definied (hanging out with baby, going to mom and me program's, no crazy ridiculous estate appointments), is all they have known. Most didn't have to live in a hospital for the last bit of the pregnancy or wait forever and a day for their time in the OR to come. Most also didn't lose their mom so close to the birth of their first child and have to come home to sort out an estate. It can be difficult to relate to these mom's because I view their pregnancies and their maternity leaves with such envy because they were "normal" or more normal than mine. All pregnancies and maternity leaves come with their own trials and tribulations, but most of the time these aren't shared at the mom and me programs. When they are shared, I usually hold back because I don't want to seem like the one-upper to get sympathy or pity or whatever those looks are on people's faces when I tell them what happened.

That being said, I am sharing here, but I don't know who reads this or if anyone will read this. Lucky you, it's anonymous!

I am hoping to continue blogging a little bit more as I start Mat Leave Life:Full Force to help organize my thoughts and for Ava to look back on one day in the future. By that time, she will probably be able to put some microchip in her head and all the memories will just imprint on her brain. The tricky part about blogging is time, especially since Ava still does not like napping. Most days I spend her naptime driving around the Georgian Triangle with her in the backseat sleeping. I have definitely been down all those roads that you see from the road but never go down to see whats down there because you don't have time. I even found an amazing addition to the short-cut to Erin.  One of my many goals for Mat Leave Life:Full Force is to get this child to nap in her bed!!!

Blog Name

I guess I should change the name of the blog from "The Human Oven" to something else. We were officially told not to have any more children with my oven, so we are closing the shop down.

If you have any suggestions for a new name or anything I should add to my Mat Leave Life: Full Force to do list let me know by leaving a comment :)

Ava, working hard.

The Ava Chronicles: Naps are Optional

The decision to continue on the blog has made me think about what to continue writing about. Since this is basically being used now therapeutically, I guess, dear reader, you get an insight into my life and inner workings of my brain and life with Ava.

 Before Ava my life was pretty standard - get up, go to work, home for dinner/TV/housework/Girl Guide activities and to bed to do it all over again. My life changed in August and no day is quite the same. Hospital life was a lot different than home life. Hospital life had a schedule, home life has no schedule that I have been able to figure out which I am learning is normal with a baby.


Nap Protest

Ava and I have been hanging out together for almost two months now (I know, where did those two months go?!). I have learned a lot about this little human, including the fact that she does not want to nap. Naps have become optional around here this week. She would much rather sit in her swing for an hour cheerfully making happy noises than lie in her crib. I have purchased a couple of books based on recommendations from fellow mommy friends to help get inside the brain of a baby. I suspect this still won't help 100% but it's a start. She has been sleeping fairly well at night which Dave and I are thankful for.

I might have also been the cause of the nap protest. With everything going on related to Mom's estate Ava has been on the road with me a lot. We usually end up in Erin and she naps at my Mom's house while I start the process of sorting. Other days she ends up on the road with me as run other errands, go to appointments or just go out for a drive.

Ava's First Movie

Last week we ended up at the movie theater for Stars and Strollers. For those who don't know about this wonderful service, it allows parents/family members with little ones the opportunity to go to the movies and bring their little one's along. You get the option of 2 movies on Thursday afternoon (or whichever day your theatre decides) and instead of a pitch black, loud theatre, you get a dimmed, quieter theatre with a change table and stroller parking included. Stroller parking is limited, but when we went to the movie the theatre wasn't full so we were able to park (I think there was a lot more people in the other movie option).

Based on recommendations of avoiding a movie that had a lot of plot and talking (in case she got fussy and I missed parts of the movie) I decided her first movie would be Trolls. It turned out to be cute. Who doesn't love brightly coloured animated figures singing with a good message about happiness being inside of you and not something you consume (spoiler alert - the "bad guys" thought the only way to be happy was to eat a troll, kind of morbid for a children's movie) or gain from outside? I also happened to spill my entire tray of nachos on the floor at the lobby. Thank goodness for the wonderful staff for cleaning up my mess as I profusely apologized and getting me a new tray of nachos.

Ava enjoyed sleeping through most of her first movie.

No Naps = Photo Shoots

Once upon a time, we bought a "fancy" camera. I put "fancy" in quotations because there are much fancier cameras out there, but this is very fancy to us compared to our run of the mill point and shoot digital camera. Dave had to convince me before we went to Italy in 2014 that investing in this camera would be great for the trip and we could use it in the future to take pictures of future children. I gave in only because if we were only going to make it to Italy once in our lives, I wanted the best possible pictures to look at when I turn 80 (why 80? who knows, seems like a good age to look back on photos from a trip we took in 2014). It turns out this investment was great! Now when Ava refuses to sleep I pull it out and take pictures of her until she gets grumpy. It's been amazing watching her growth already through the photos over the past almost 8 weeks. When Dave was packing his hospital bag for Ava's birth day, I probably asked at least 5 times if he packed our fancy camera. I really wanted pictures of this day to look back on when I'm 80, or as I do right now, just about every afternoon after Ava's photo shoots. I love watching how much her face has changed already. It's going to be fun to look back through her first year one day and reminisce about how small she was.

Ava also likes to look at her pictures. 

Introduction to Binge Watching

When we aren't running the roads, going to the movies or doing photo shoots, we watch Netflix. Thank goodness for Netflix. I don't know what I would do without it. Daytime TV is seriously lacking. I don't enjoy a lot of the talk shows and don't get me started on soaps. Some days I watch what I PVR'd the previous evening because I usually missed the episode because of hanging out with Ava. If for some reason, I ended up watching my show the previous night we head to Netflix to introduce Ava to the fine art of binge watching. What has been on our playlist lately? Gilmore Girls, of course. I started watching the 1st season again in the hospital, but didn't make it to the 2nd season. In the past 3 weeks we have rocked through the 2nd season and are slowly making it through the 5th. The goal was to finish my 3rd viewing, Ava's first, of the series before tomorrow when the revival comes out on Netflix. I think I will have to let go of this goal and just jump to the new episodes as there are not enough hours in the day to get through all the coffee-drinking, fast-talking, quirky character filled episodes of Gilmore Girls. 

What kind of question is this Netflix?

After tomorrow, we will have to find a new show to binge watch during feedings and sleep fighting, any recommendations out there? 

Learning How to Swim

It’s been almost 3 months since my life changed forever with the loss of my mom and almost 2 months since my life changed again with the birth of my daughter. It’s been a while since I blogged about anything as so many emotions have occurred over the past three months and it’s sometimes hard to put them into words, especially on paper and to be shared so publicly. I had full intentions of just blogging until Ava was born, as a way of mass updating everyone. Today I had a realization that this was more of a therapeutic outlet for me as I struggle with two different worlds as well as a way of updating anyone who is interested in what Ava and I (and Dave, of course) are up to.

With the holidays approaching there are a lot of mixed emotions right now. Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year. I usually beg Dave to let me put the decorations up as soon as November 12^th hits. We have an agreement that decorating cannot occur until the day of the Toronto Santa Claus parade. Typically I know the date off by heart. This year I had to look it up and am really debating how much, if at all, we will decorate. I was at my mom’s yesterday going through boxes in the basement with one of my aunt’s and one of my uncle’s and a lot of emotions and memories came flooding back. Christmas was sometimes a hard time of year for my mom as we often did not have a lot of money to celebrate the way we did when we were younger. She was able to make Christmas special for us and usually worked like a crazy person throughout December to be able to give us special presents. I realize now that the presents weren’t that memorable, but the times spent with her and our family was. In recent years, she would occasionally make her way up to the beach to spend Christmas with Dave and I. We didn’t do anything elaborate, just a nice meal and a day spent resting and relaxing with Christmas movies, something my mom rarely did when at home. Last year, our gift was paint. I know this seems like an odd Christmas gift, but mom always got us something that would make our house a home. Looking around our home right now there are so many things that my mom made or bought/found for us. Last year, in true Gwenda fashion, she woke up, put her paint clothes on and started painting our feature wall. These memories make it so hard this year to get into the spirit, even with it being Ava’s 1^st Christmas.

As I prepared to leave my mom’s house yesterday, I sent Dave a text message about having a really hard time leaving today. He asked why? I really didn’t have a good answer for that. Reflecting back on it, I think it’s because I was waiting for her to appear so I could say hello and give her a massive hug. That was the first time I had truly been alone in her house without her. It was really hard to leave knowing I couldn’t say hi or goodbye properly. The reality of the situation hit me that the lead up to Christmas this year will be organizing and sorting out her things in preparation to sell her house. This is a very different holiday season than any other year.

On the other side of my life, I want to make this year special for Ava. I know she will only be 3 months old and likely won’t remember if we will have a Christmas tree or decorations out but I will. I have struggled with what to do as I am struggling with how to approach the festive season. I don’t want to look back on pictures and see our regular home décor and regret not setting things up for her this Christmas. At the same time, celebrating will be hard this year.

To anyone reading this, I am sorry it was so sappy. It’s been a while and there are so many emotions this year. As I close one life and open another, it’s sometimes easy to lose track of myself. I find that this blog is very helpful for me to get perspective on who I am as I am stuck somewhere in the middle of grief and joy. Thank you for reading and continuing to be interested in my ramblings. I appreciate every single one of you for being in my life and riding this crazy wave with me. 

A joyful find yesterday - my baby shirt from the hospital

September 29th – The Longest Day of My Life

This pregnancy has been full of many days of waiting as well as many ups and downs, so why would the date of Ava’s scheduled C-section not follow suit? It sounds like several of you were waiting patiently to see the update on Facebook about the good news. I have been told by many friends who were Facebook stalking me that as the day went on the worry increased. So here’s the story of September 29^th…the day that feels as though it’s never ended.

Ava Catherine McKay

Born September 29th, 2016 at10:19pm

I hardly slept all night. This was like Christmas and my present was going to be one of the best of my life. My night nurse (who happened to be one of my first nurses’ during my stay) came in at 6am to check my vitals and update me about the prepping me for the rest of the day around 7am. At 6:30am, my Aunt Kim, Aunt Sheree and Debbie (one of my mom’s best friends who might as well by my Aunt) came into my room. Since my roommate was still sleeping we all went down to the patient lounge to chat and wait for Dave. Little did we know there was a truck that had hit a sign on the 400 and Dave was stuck in horrible traffic. It took him just over 3 hours to get to Toronto when it usually takes 2 hours. My stress was increasing when he hadn’t arrived by the time I was hooked up on the IV and changed into a gown. He finally made it around 9:15am and I was thankful that I hadn’t been pulled over to Labour and Delivery yet. At 10am, one of the OB’s came to see me to complete a final ultrasound to finalize where the incision would be. I was a little annoyed as 10am was when I was scheduled to be in the OR, but over the past 34 days I had learned that the hospital runs on it’s own time. We were told that Labour and Delivery was quite busy with a lot of emergencies, so we would have to be bumped until they were emergency free.

Back to my room in the antenatal unit we went to sit and wait. At 12pm we were finally taken over to Labour and Delivery. The unique thing about this room was it was the first room I was ever admitted to at Mount Sinai following my first PRI on August 17^th.  By this time, I was getting hungry (saline really does nothing to curb ones appetite). The hours started to tick by and the annoyance factor started to increase. Rational Sheena understands that if there is an emergency it should take precedence over a stable patient. Rational Sheena would have never forgiven herself if any woman lost their baby because a stubborn patient wanted to go in first. Rational Sheena was also missing and replaced with Hangry Sheena, Impatient Sheena and Tired Sheena – not my finest traits, especially when combined together. The nurse came in around 2pm to let me know that I had been bumped once again. I asked if my support team had enough time to go get lunch as I could tell they were fading. The team went downstairs and I was left upstairs with my nurse where I might have had a little breakdown. My team came back and we decided to watch TV to pass the time. Every hour or so, we were told again that I had been bumped. I am not good at waiting, so I decided to use the little energy I had left to pace the halls and walk (scowl) at the nurses station, checking out the monitor behind the station to see if my name had popped up on the OR list yet.

At 6pm, the OB surgical team FINALLY came in to tell me there were two ahead of me and I was definitely next following them…pending no further emergencies. With two OR’s open this meant I should be in there around 7:30/8pm. Excitement mounted in the room – it was almost go time. We took a few last photos of my last hour of being pregnant. I went for one more walk around the unit to try to distract myself from hunger pains and nerves when I saw a stretcher being wheeled into the OR – presumably another emergency. At this point, I was DONE. I would need to rate this blog posting R if I wrote what I actually said to Dave, but it was something along the line of if they don’t do this soon, I am going to lose it. They are either doing it now or I am eating. Imagine that sprinkled with some expletive words and that’s close to what was actually said. No wonder the nurses had stopped coming in to give me the bad news that I had been bumped.

Just before 10pm my nurse came in and said it was go time! I am certain a cheer went up in the room, but I was so tired by this point that most of what happened is a blur. I remember walking through the doors I stared at all day with Dave by my side. Dave was sent to the partner chair in the hall while I was brought into the OR to be prepped. My Anesthesiologist, Dr. Ho, started the party off with some 90’s dance music (think Night at the Roxbury) and a nice spinal for me. I will spare you the rest of the fun details. Those of you that have had a Caesarean section probably have flashbacks of the moment that the surgical team is applying so much pressure to get your baby out that you are certain they forget that there is an actual person attached to body they are working on. The stress and emotion of the day went away as soon as I heard her little cry (well, big cry) at 10:19pm – almost 12 hours after I had expected to hear that cry.  Dave got to take many pictures of her first moments and got to cut her umbilical cord while I got to watch her on a little screen by my head. Earlier that day I had prepped Dave that if they took her up to the NICU to follow her. We really weren’t certain if she would have been allowed to come back to the recovery room with us. As I watched her get oxygen, I worried that she would have to go and I wouldn’t get to meet her until September 30th. Much to my surprise they handed her to Dave to introduce her to me. After all was said and done (and stitched up) Ava got to come back to the recovery room with us and meet her Great Aunts as they popped the prosecco they had been waiting all day to pop. They left shortly after so they could finally go home to get some sleep and my little family was whisked off to another room to recover for the night.

First (of many) family photo!

I deeply regretted all the pacing of the halls I had done since I was now exhausted and as the spinal wore off the pain came on. The only great thing about that night was getting skin-to-skin time with her from 5:45am to 7:45am. The rest of that day was dreadful and any updates that went out were from Dave as I was in a lot of pain despite the meds. It took all my might to use my physiotherapy knowledge to get mobilizing and walking instead of staying in bed. We were moved to the recovery floor where the mom’s with healthy babies go. I was a little heartbroken that I was not headed back to my old unit as I thought it was only fair that the nurses that cared for me for weeks be the first ones to see and hold the baby, but alas they deemed us healthy and up to the 16^th floor we went. The afternoon and night were equally as horrible, very little sleep was had due to this recent onset of right shoulder and rib pain that left me basically useless. I had to sleep sitting up and couldn’t care for Ava. Thank goodness Dave took onto the role of Dad very quickly.

On Saturday morning, I finally left the room on the recovery unit for a walk. The OB resident came to see me and told me that we could go home that afternoon. The prospects of going home were quite motivating. I did everything I could to hit all the checkmarks to go home, including going to breastfeeding class, seeing a lactation consultant and trying to get rid of the right shoulder pain. Around 11am, my nurse told me that I could attend discharge class at 1pm and go home shortly after that. We attended, were given a vast amount of information about what to do when we got home as well as Ava’s temporary OHIP card. We had one more checkmark which was checking in with the lactation consultant again. She was surprised I wasn’t being made to stay another night, but signed off on the plan. 

Ava got to meet Mouse-Pig

I was finally allowed to leave Mount Sinai, but not before I went to say goodbye to the unit I lived on for 34 days. Thankfully, so many of the nurses that cared for me were there that afternoon and not doing active care so were able to chat. It was there that I learned that my roommate (who was 28 weeks + 4days) had gone into labour that day and was over in Labour and Delivery having an emergency Caesarian (she emailed me later that day to let me know that her little one was born at 3pm at 2lbs and 10oz and had a lengthy NICU stay ahead of her). I went up to the NICU before I left to visit with another roommate from the unit and meet her little one. After this, we were off! I was officially allowed to leave and not just me, Ava was allowed to leave. We were the fortunate ones from 15 Murray. Most of the women that spend their pregnancy there are allowed to leave at the end, but usually their babies spend time in the NICU. Despite the day feeling never ending (is it still September 29^th today?), it was worth it to finally meet Ava and to stop calling her Baby A. 

Ava 

Wacky Wednesday - The Curse Continues.

Oh Wednesday, my last Wacky Wednesday before baby. Last night I went to bed thinking this day would be as uneventful as the past several days. I made a to-do list of important tasks that I wanted to get done before the weekend, especially some that are related to my Mom's estate (dealing with that while in the hospital has been very difficult. I can't wait to get home so I can have a private conversation on the phone and get some things figured out). I like to plan ahead to keep myself busy. I knew for sure I was not attending Art with Hal on my last wacky Wednesday. Warning - this is a long post!

My day started super early and I am not an early bird. I hate that the nurses come check on me at 6:30am or earlier, especially after my night check was at 10pm last night. I have been stable for quite some time, so it gets very repetitive to hear the same thing at every check. My night nurse forgot that I had to go back on the monitor (NST) last night since A was not being her usual self after her very active ultrasound. Let me back my story up a little. I had, what I thought was, my last ultrasound yesterday. Tuesday is ultrasound day and I love it because I get to see A rocking out. She was definitely true to her style and rocking out hard, so hard that the ultrasound nurse had difficulties getting the measurements of the artery in her brain. When she did end up getting the measurement it was high, which usually indicated fetal anemia. She attributed it to the activity that A was doing because there was no other indications of fetal anemia, but said she would mention it to the OB's and they might schedule me for another ultrasound on Wednesday. My nurse told the OB's just wanted a second NST ran. At 6am, my lovely night nurse hooked me up to the monitor as we bantered about movie theatre nachos and street meat (she told me there is a hot dog cart behind Sick Kids that's open all night). She also took blood in preparation for my C-section on October 3rd to check my platelets and other important markers. After 20 minutes A's reading was deemed "beauitful" and back to sleep I went until 8:30 when breakfast was delivered.

I finally decided at 9am that I should stop lounging around and actually eat my breakfast and start getting ready for the day. My roommate and I had our usual chats about the day and being tired after the 6am wake-up call. We decided that we should shut out door and writer "We're stable, we'll call you if it changes" and go back to bed. She went to the washroom and started yelling that she was bleeding. Having experienced this myself and recognizing the panic in her voice I yelled to "pull the cord" (I learned one day, accidentally, that when the cord gets pulled everyone comes running). Suddenly our room was full of nurses and my roommate was set up on the monitor. I was truly worried I passed my wacky Wednesday curse to her. Her baby was deemed fine and off the monitor she went. Morning life resumed and we both went downstairs to get our hot beverages (her -tea, me - coffee + a cookie). I came upstairs while she went outside to enjoy some fresh air.

As I was enjoying the last of my cookie, I was whisked away to an ultrasound where I learned the measurements from yesterday hadn't changed despite A being less active today (the nurse described yesterday as her being on a treadmill and today her doing yoga). I knew something was up when the OB was pulled in. She explained the situation about the possible anemia and weighing the risks and benefits of keeping her in there until Monday. She asked how I would feel having the baby in the next 48-72 hours. She said she would be back to see me shortly in my room, but advised me not to eat or drink anything until she had come to chat about the new plan.

I got back to my room. Frantically called Dave to let him know of the situation while I hide in my hiding nook with the Mouse-Pig picture and assured him I would text him as soon as I knew anything more. During this time, lunch was delivered - mac and cheese Wednesday!! Love mac and cheese Wednesday, especially knowing it was my last. Around this time, I watched my old roommate get wheeled over the the other side (Labour and Delivery). I chatted with her husband and he told me that her tracings of the baby's fetal heart were abnormal and they were preparing to deliver her little girl. More wacky Wednesday curse being passed along.

After pacing the hall several times, I went back to my room and waited for the doctor. I was given the news - the surgery was booked for 10am tomorrow and I could eat until midnight tonight. She did warn me that it could be delayed if there was an emergency so I am hoping there are no emergency deliveries that bump me. After the OB left, I came to realize this is my LAST day being pregnant. I did not anticipate this until at least Sunday (Oh no! Sunday was my last cinnamon scone). My actual OB is in Rome on an ultrasound conference until next week, so my whole team has changed. I am unusually comfortable with this.

In addition to Dave I had to let my Aunt's and pseudo-Aunt's (my Mom's two best friends, Debbie and Lorraine) know that the plan had changed. They were all coming down Sunday night to have a slumber party at a condo close by, so I had to let them know the slumber party date would change. These women are so excited for this baby and are coming in to represent my Mom...and also sneak some champagne in. We need to celebrate after the past several weeks.

On another note, it's so strange to think that it's my last night being pregnant. Tonight will be the last night I waste time walking up and down the halls, the last night I will get to feel her little kicks in my belly, the last night of baby gymnastics and the last night without a little baby to care for. I am very thankful it's the last night I have to worry about a placenta related incident. The stress of this pregnancy will be over and the adventure will begin. It's so weird that my day tomorrow is planned for me and I won't have to wake up wondering what Thursday holds.

All day long though I have wished that my Mom could be here.

Becoming a Mom Without Mom

This post has taken a while for me to write. I’ve started writing it over and over again in my head the past two weeks but hadn't been ready to share until now. I was always hesitant to share because I worry about how much I should share about my mom and how her loss has affected me. I definitely don’t write this looking for sympathy, but rather to share my feelings about losing her at a time when I need her and share some insight into what an amazing person she was. I know for certain I am not the first or the last to lose their mom so close to becoming a first time mom, but what I do know is that it really sucks and I have the utmost respect for any other mom out there who has dealt with losing their mom during a time when they needed her. It’s really hard to believe she’s been gone almost 6 weeks already.

My Mom has always been my pillar of strength, cheerleader and number one fan. My parents separated when I was 12, I won’t get into details but she became a single mom at this time.  She sacrificed so much during our teenage years to make sure my brother and I always had the basic necessities, often sacrificing her own needs and comforts and working countless jobs to ensure we had a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and clothes on our backs. She was so happy when she finally had enough money saved to buy a little house and build a shop on the property to work in. Other than Cody and me, her house was her pride and joy and it showed. She was also passionate about gardening and her backyard displayed that immensely. She loved her backyard so much she offered to hold any party that came along back there in the summer months, from birthday parties to random just for fun parties. We thought it only fitting that we hold one in her honour to celebrate her life on August 20^th (it was a lot more subdued than the one we had a month previous to celebrate my Grandma’s 80^th and my step-Grandpa’s 90^th birthdays).

She was one of the first people we told about the pregnancy. I had been calling her shortly after every ultrasound or follow-up appointment with my OB/GYN since my fibroid degenerated in January to give her the latest news. When we initially got our positive pregnancy test in late February, I didn’t tell her. Most of my family and her close friends knew that once you tell Gwenda something, the whole town of Erin knew. I was definitely selective with what I shared since I knew news traveled fast once my Mom got a hold of it. I figured she was always too excited to keep the news to herself. In 2009, Dave got to learn this firsthand how well my Mom could keep a secret when he called to ask if he could ask me to marry him. We went to Jasper for the weekend to finally see the Rocky Mountains before we moved home from Alberta and to celebrate me almost being done physio school. I had no clue that there was a marriage proposal coming, sometimes I am oblivious to the obvious, but Mom knew as well as most of my family and, I am sure, her close friends, neighbours, strangers on the street, etc. So, we didn’t tell her the fateful night when we got our positive test. We decided to wait until our ultrasound came back and confirmed that the pregnancy was viable.

Our viability ultrasound was March 17^th. When I called her with the update, I knew she could tell something was up as soon as I said “Well, there was something else that showed up”. There was a little concern in her voice as she said “Oh really?” I followed this by “you MUST keep this one a secret though”. I didn’t have to say anything else, she knew and she was ecstatic! As far as I know, she did keep this one a secret until we told everyone a couple of weeks later.

My Mom was so excited for her first grand-baby. She was pretty certain she was destined to just have grand dogs, especially after we added Stella, our adorable Boston Terrier rescue, to our family in June 2015. I had a deal with Dave that we were either having a baby or a dog. Dave went the path of least resistance and decided the dog was the better route to go in 2015.

She was so excited that we decided we would invite her to the anatomy scan at 19 weeks so that she could “meet” her new grand-baby and discover the gender with us. She was pretty certain that she was having a granddaughter despite me thinking I was carrying her grandson. When the ultrasound tech finally finished her measurements for baby A, she pulled Dave and Mom into the room with me for the big reveal. She celebrated with a big “YES!” when she heard it was a little girl. Off we went into the parking lot to go our separate ways home. I felt a little guilty making my mom drive all the way up to Collingwood for 5 minutes in the ultrasound room, especially since she usually has about 500 other things on the go and had to take time away from them. Dave reassured me that she wouldn’t have driven all the way up if she didn’t want to come. In hindsight, I am so glad she came. She won’t physically get to meet A, but she did get to see A and grandma’s memory will live on through all the crazy stories we will share of her adventures.

The last time I saw my Mom was the Sunday of Civic Holiday weekend. She had come up to help us move a crib and glider chair from our co-worker’s house to ours. It was a great day. I made breakfast for the three of us, she played with the dogs, she got to check out the crib and chair (she gave the Gwenda head nod of approval), she wandered around Home Hardware while we had a key made to our house for her (she was scheduled for babysitting the dogs when Dave and I were down at the hospital having A). She found these beautiful stars that she wanted to get to put on her shop. I made a mental note that this would make a great Christmas present and almost went in to Home Hardware the week before her death to buy them for her. I decided against it that day as she had said she wanted to measure the space on the outside of her shop first. Overall, we had a great day together and she got to see the nursery coming together and the grand dogs got to play with her one last time.

The last time I talked to my Mom on the phone was August 14^th, she passed the next day. We chatted twice that day. Our first conversation, she was telling me all about the family reunion she attended in Tobermory the day before. She had somehow become traffic control in the harbor after noticing a family was having a hard time getting out of their parking spot. Of course she directed traffic while eating an ice cream cone. She also wanted to make sure I was ok. Dave had gone to a friend’s wedding in Ottawa. We didn’t want to risk me being so far away from Toronto due to the high risk nature of this pregnancy, so Dave went stag.  Later that evening, I had gone to meet a friend in Barrie to pick up some baby clothes (some actually turned into 3 garbage bags full). She had left a message on our answering machine about a relative’s girlfriend being in the Olympics which I listened to when I got home. I called her back to let her know where I had been and tell her about the massive bags of baby clothes. It sounded like I had gotten her up from bed, so it was a quick phone call but I am so thankful I called her back that night and we had one last chat. Little did I know it would be our last conversation.

It’s been hard imaging living the rest of my life without her. She’s always been there when I needed her to either offer advice, a shoulder to cry on or to cheer me on. I knew a time would come that my parents would no longer be around, but I didn’t envision it being in my 30’s or when such a huge life change was happening. While being in the hospital I have been somewhat sheltered from the realities that await me on the outside without her. As the executor (I hate the term executrix) of her estate I have to make a lot of decisions once I get out, I am basically closing one life while bringing another into the world. It’s a very strange feeling; one I am not entirely comfortable with. 

I know if she were still here on Earth she would be in my hospital room all the time. At the hospital, they give the birth support person a yellow band with the mom-to-be’s hospital number on it. I am certain she would be wearing that yellow band instead of Dave (sorry Dave, I am sure she would give it up when the big birthday came). Dave and I actually joke that she probably would have made a new cushion for the chair, a new comforter for the bed and designed her own cot to sleep on by my bedside. The crazy thing is she probably would have and we would laugh hysterically about it. The nurses would have loved her. I still miss her like crazy every day and suspect I always will, but the love she had for the granddaughter she doesn’t get to meet gives me strength and hope that this baby will get us through anything that might be ahead of us.