Those who have known me for a long time know that I have always been fascinated with pregnancy. It’s what I started to paint as a young 15-year-old artist. With that admiration, I have always been a big fan of pregnancy and delivery stories. With that information, I always knew I would share mine. Like most new moms I had an idea of how I would anticipate the situations about to arise with expecting a new baby, but as life would happen, nothing went according to plan.

I always thought I would love being pregnant. Do many adorable photoshoots, every DIY project such as casting and painting my belly and feeling full of love. Ya, no. I did nothing of the sort. The first three months were very very hard on me both mentally and physically. I was vomiting all the time. I did not feel like myself AND I was about to start my dream job, as advised by everyone, I wanted to wait until after my probation period to tell my employer about my growing belly. It was also very hard to be seen by a medical professional. But we got a new family doctor and finally after weeks heard back from our local midwife clinic who accepted us as patients. I knew I was in good hands when I first met my midwife Aimee and gladly accepted for there to be students to take on the smaller roles during my visits. My visits were lovely but I felt very bad for Cole as until the very end he was not allowed in the clinic due to covid guidelines.

The second trimester involved a little less vomiting, and the support of an amazing coworker but still not feeling at all like my normal self. We found out about the sex and began to really explore names. Ps. Naming a human being is very hard. We did have our baby shower at this time and we decided to make it a Halloween theme and also celebrated Cole, my husband’s, birthday. I lasted less than 2 hours.

By the time the third trimester rolled in the vomiting stopped and the insomnia and sleep sweats began. I began my maternity leave at 8 months due to feeling like a human incubator with sore feet and spent the next 3.5 weeks cleaning my house – nesting as it’s called.

I really thought I was going to deliver early and knew I did not want a hospital birth. My birth plan was since day one to deliver at the midwife clinic but the universe had other plans. I’ll let Cole explain the rest…

Cole’s version of little Wolf’s birthday story:

Let’s start from the very beginning shall we, Aimée and I have been expecting for approximately 39 weeks and 4 days, Aimée, I would like to say she had an easy peasy pregnancy but the truth is she didn’t, it was full of puking for the first 2 trimesters and lots and lots of pain she wasn’t use to as her body went through the miraculous changes that would prepare her for the birth of our little Wolfy. 

Now that you know pregnancy may not always be as glamorous as Hollywood would make it up to be. 

Let’s fast forward to the day the magic happened. It was a Tuesday January 10th 2023, I was working the day shift at the mining manufacturing plant that I’ve been at for the past 3 years doing all the things I have to do to get my guys to get the job done. Thinking it was just like any other day though in the back of my mind I knew at any second my lovely wife could go into labour. It was shortly past my lunch break around 12pm (my lunch is at 11 when working day shift) that my assistant supervisor came to me with a text from Aimée, for some reason my cell gets horrible service in the plant some days. After seeing the text I went outside to call my love. The conversation goes : “hey babe I just got your text is everything ok.?” Aimée- “hey I think I’m going into labor I’ve been bleeding and it really hurts but I just wanted you to know I don’t think it’s serious so you can finish your shift.” Me- “is the bleeding bad? Did you call the midwife Don’t worry I’m on my way home!” Aimée- “it’s ok it’s not serious it’s normal to bleed.” Me- “don’t worry I’m on my way home I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

After I got off the phone I was a little worried I didn’t know the extent of the bleeding or if she was having a miscarriage, in hindsight now that I think about it she wasn’t crying or panicking so that was a good sign. Still worried on my way home I called the midwife and what a good idea it was. After a brief call with reception at the midwifery clinic and being hung up on ( that pissed me off because I didn’t get to ask the question I wanted but I digress) I got home to find Aimée sitting on the floor having mild contractions, for the next hour Aimée and the midwives spoke on the phone back and forth as they got her info to gauge how far along she was, personally they didn’t think she would be giving birth 6 hours later. 

As the time goes on I started to count the contractions to see how long and how far apart they were. They say when you are close to birth go by the 5-1-1 rule, contractions last 1 minute 5 minutes apart lasting an hour. After counting for about 4 hours her numbers were close to the 5-1-1 rule but slightly inconsistent, it was about 4 pm when she started to experience even more severe pain to the point she decided she needed an epidural, I called the midwife and explained she was in a lot of pain and was asking to be taken to the hospital, while the midwife kinda downplayed her pain and were slightly persistent in asking if she really really needed one though Aimée was very adamant she wanted one we had made a plan to meet at the hospital. 

At this point Aimée’s pain was so bad she could barely walk, it took about an hour to finally get her in the car, most of the time was spend pushing on her lower back to relieve the pain so I could try to get her to the car. Honestly, I wasn’t sure we would even make it to the car let alone the hospital but my love never gave up in a moment of slightly less severe pain she managed to get her pants and walk to the car. We had made it a quarter of the way haha now the real adventure begins it’s 530pm and we are on our way to the big event, during the car ride my poor wife was in so much pain she disassociated for a bit, to me it seemed like an out of body experience for her, the whole way she was saying relax to her self over and over. 

We managed to arrive at the hospital at 6pm (it’s only a half hour away from our house) and after a little mix up in the ER (lol) my fault I was frantic, we got a porter to take her up to the birthing unit for triage with me in tow. 

As we walked in the midwife met us at the desk and took Aimée in right away to assess the situation while I was booking her in at the desk, then was told to wait outside the doors for privacy reasons, that was understandable because they didn’t know if she was too early in her labor to be given her a room, after about 30 minutes they came to get me to let me know she had a room, I went it to find my love in so much pain and dilated a whopping 7cm (we only had 3 left to go) continuously asking for the dam epidural, though she was met with “we need your vitals we need your blood work so we can order the shot” which took about an hour to get it all done, Aimée has very small vanes so getting the blood was hard, at around 730pm after asking and asking and asking we found out the drugs weren’t coming as the doctor that administers it was called into surgery. Thank god for nitrous oxide. The nurses gave Aimée a mask to breathe the happy air to help with the pain as the shot sadly wouldn’t come. At this point we were trying to control the pain with a room full of nurses and midwives I thought it would be a good idea to move my car so it wouldn’t be towed ( thank god it never did get towed) as I was on my way out I was called back and said “if you go you might have a baby when you get back,” quickly I came back and settled in to help my love perform the greatest miracle of all time. 

7:15pm the magic started. My amazing mother in law arrived and held my loves hand from the moment she got there, something I knew was very important for both of them. Aimée’s body started involuntarily pushing with each contraction.. The midwives (there were three present) jumped into action it was go time, Wolf was on his way. In about 45 minutes I watched my wife’s body and mind work harder than I’ve ever seen anyone or anything work before in my life. Though it did get to a point the little dude got stuck and a birthing doctor was called in to do a snip and suction to get my guy out, it wasn’t long after with one final massive push at 8:02 pm our beautiful little baby boy Wolf Ziggy-Alexandre had joined us in this world. 

I didn’t know at the time and was confused why I was rushed to cut the cord but the little guy had his cord wrapped around his neck twice, he was taken away and shortly after having all the shit sucked out that he had eaten in the womb he was back on Aimee’s chest. Even though he was born full term he was slightly under weight at 5 ponds 8 ounces and had to spend the night in the NICU because he has low blood sugar but with every feed he was given, his sugars came up and stabilized. 

Two nights later Aimée was feeling amazing and chipper and we were finally allowed to take our little bundle of joy home. 

What a crazy stressful but ultimately the most beautiful experience I’ve ever been a part of. My admiration and love for my wife and respect for what she went through for 9 months has grown exponentially and continues to every day as we watch out little gem grow. 

To my wife and to our son my love for you both is endless.

– Cole.

Back to me, a very tiered new mom. I feel so blessed to have my baby in my arms and truly thank myself for demanding an epidural – even if I never got one.

Brb – have to go hangout with Wolf ❤