finally... the birth story.

Around 1am, I woke up (once again) with wicked heartburn. It was so bad that I couldn't even be laying down. After a trip to the bathroom for my fifth and sixth Tums of the night, I decided to head out to the recliner in our living room so I could sleep a bit more upright. It worked and -after quickly checking Facebook and the comments on my blog, of course- I fell asleep and didn't wake up until right around 5am. Almost four hours! Quite the feat considering the capacity of my bladder at 41+ weeks pregnant.

But before I go any further, lets have a recap of the few days prior... courtesy of my Twitter stream.

Saturday, June 11th,

Sunday, June 12th,


Monday, June 13th,




Monday, June 14th,


Carrying on...

5:00 am - Wake up. Feel a contraction not long after... that actually kinda hurts. Get up, grab the laptop so I can listen to my hypnobabies scripts. Head back to bed.

5:10 am - Back in bed, listening to the "First Stages" script. A few more contractions. Have to concentrate a bit during them, more to try to figure out if they were real or not. Have to use the bathroom after each "wave" (more on that later). 

6:00 am - Not really able to sleep. Get up to wake the boys for school. Simon and Andrew are already awake. Attempt to rouse Liam. Have a contraction. 

6:05 am - Another contraction. Tell Liam that maybe the baby will be here when he gets home from school. Get no response (but I do get a nice hug before he heads for breakfast).

6:10 am - Sit in the dark of the boys' room contemplating the possibility that this might actually be the birth day. Feel yet another contraction. Go back to bed to listen to my script and try to relax. Not able to get comfortable at all while lying down.

6:30 am - Peter comes back up from getting the boys on the bus. I tell him that maybe he should stay home from work, but "would he be mad if it doesn't happen today?". He says he'll stay. I have him move the chair from the boys' room into ours so I can be sitting up, then move the crib and dresser out of the way so there'll be room for the birth pool.

6:45 am - Not timing contractions, but think about calling the doctor.

6:50 am - Okay. Enough waiting. Call the doctor AND GET HIS VOICEMAIL. Leave a message saying I think this might be the real thing. He calls back and says he'll be here in an hour. I hang up on him because I can't talk through the contraction.

With all my other labours, my contractions followed a predictable pattern. They very distinctly started low and the tightening worked its way up my belly in a wave, peaked, and then worked its way back down. These are so, so different. While I still feel the tightening, there is almost no pain whatsoever in my abdomen itself. It's ALL in my cervix. Deep inside and so, so strong. When I lean forward even the tiniest bit, the pain is unbearable. Way too intense.

I labour mostly sitting up in an armchair, listening to my hypnobabies script. Peter brings in his coffee and newspaper, but Andrew follows him in and keeps trying to climb on me (only during contractions of course). I try a few times to lay down -since I really want to lay down!- but the pain quadruples and I lay there whimpering. I can't relax or concentrate on anything other than just surviving til the wave ends and I can get back in the chair. I try sitting on the exercise ball. I try kneeling on the ground, leaning on the ball. But anything other than sitting slightly reclined in the chair just doesn't work. I feel very nauseous during each contraction.

I sit in the chair with my legs crossed, feet on the exercise ball, and head propped up on a pillow against the wall (Peter has to both lift my legs onto the ball AND reach the pillow that's sitting mere inches away). I concentrate on consciously relaxing all the muscles in my abdomen and uterus, and say to myself "open, open, open" with each wave of pain. I can hear Peter playing with Andrew somewhere in the house. Between contractions I silently curse the woman on the disc and her claims that all I feel is "pressure". This is far, far, FAR more than pressure. FAR. MORE.

Peter comes in often to check on me. I can hear him come in, but he leaves me to my chair and scripts. A few times I sit up to talk to him or attempt to change positions, but whenever I'm not concentrating on relaxing I want to climb out of my skin. Even though listening to the scrips and practicing what I've learned do not make things painless, I feel completely out of control when I break my concentration.

7:50 am - It's one hour after the doctor said he would be here in one hour.  He's not here. I have Peter call him. He says he's 10 minutes away. I'm super nauseous with each surge.

8:00 am - Me: CALL. HIM. AGAIN. Even with deep, deliberate, conscious concentration I'm having a hard time keeping calm and relaxed. Although I still feel in control, I begin to wonder if the doctor will make it in time. He definitely won't have time to inflate and fill the birth pool. Peter fills the tub and puts some water on to boil (since our hot water tank hardly fills the tub 8" before running out).

8:05 am - Peter calls down to the portero (guard) to let him know to expect the doctor and let him up right away. I'm whimpering and starting to feel frantic. I can tell baby is coming, BUT I'M STILL FULLY DRESSED SITTING IN THE ARMCHAIR.

8:10 am - The doctor finally arrives. He and Peter make several trips bringing equipment into our bedroom. I'm on my hands and knees, barely able to speak, and starting to seriously panic THAT THEY KEEP LEAVING THE ROOM. I somehow manage to blurt out that the baby is coming and THEY NEED TO STOP LEAVING. I'm still wearing my pyjamas and at serious risk of delivering baby girl fully dressed. The imminency of the situation now clear, the doctor helps me out of my pjs while Peter runs around the house frantically gathering every towel we own. The doctor tries to check me and I none too calmly tell him to get away from me. I ask Peter to change the track playing on the laptop to the "pushing" script.

8:15 am - I ask Peter what time it is. He tells me 8:15. I start pushing and can tell she's coming fast. About three minutes after asking Peter to turn the hypnobabies pushing script up, I tell him abruptly to turn it off. I'm not listening anymore... or maybe just not hearing. At this point it's all about getting it done. I vocalize loudly, but am not screaming like with Andrew. Pushing is painful (way more than pressure!), but is also a relief. I feel intense pain as she descends through the birth canal and crowns, but am not worried I'll die before she's born like I did during transition and pushing with Andrew.

8:22 am - As her head is born, the doctor asks me to stop pushing. Ha. As the rest of her body emerges, there's such a wave of relief. The bag of waters breaks as she's born -or the doctor broke it once her head was born- as it hadn't broken prior to labour. Still on my hands and knees and shaking from the effort, I don't even pick her up immediately. Either Peter or the doctor wraps her in a hand towel and I get my first good look at her as she lets out her first little cries. I again ask Peter what time it is and am amazed to hear it's only been seven minutes. After a few more minutes, I manage to turn over so I can sit and get a better look at her... and her red hair!

8:30 am - The nurse arrives as we're waiting for the placenta to be born. The look on her face when she sees the baby already here is priceless. After sitting for a few minutes more, I decide to get up and head to the pre-filled-but-now-barely-warm tub with the baby. Even with all the boiling water from the stove, it's not comfortable for long. It does give me the chance to clean us both up a bit and to nurse the baby.



After changing into a clean (and non-pyjama) shirt (that I managed to put on backwards), I headed to the bed and we finally called my mom and Andrew into the room... to meet Eloise Amora Kaye Bundy. Andrew climbed right up onto the bed and was quick to give hugs and kisses to both me and Eloise, although he was more focused on me than the baby.

about 75 minutes after birth

She didn't have even a hint of a cone-head, no bruising whatsoever. She came out so quickly, there was just no time.

After a few pictures, Peter took Eloise out to try calling his family on Skype, and my mom was able to get ahold of my younger sister. Since I was still laying on the bed covered by a towel, I finally asked the nurses to get the doctor to come assess the damage. As he started with the freezing, I had to ask one of the nurses if they'd mind getting me some toast or a muffin or something to eat. I was feeling light-headed and realized that -at 10:30 am- I hadn't eaten a thing that day!

Stitching completed, they brought Eloise back in to weight and measure her. As you can see, she wasn't a fan of the process.

After another shower, I headed out to grab another snack and pretty much parked myself on the couch for the rest of the day. The doctor and nurses mentioned several times "how strong Canadian women are". They couldn't believe how quickly and "easily" I laboured, that I was up taking a bath 10 minutes after the birth, and walking around getting myself something to eat a few hours later (they had, however, just come from a 21 hour labour where the mom pushed for four hours). They left about four hours after Eloise was born.

I'll end here even though I haven't written about Liam and Simon's first reactions (Simon said some hilarious and blog-worthy things), since it's taken me this long to make it this far... and she'll be 15 days old tomorrow!

Eloise birth was not quite what I'd envisioned... It was not the calm waterbirth I'd wanted. There was no birth pool. No cute bathing suit I'd bought specially for the occasion. There was no peaceful easing, no gentle waves of pressure, no letting my body bring the baby out. It was intense and powerful and overwhelming and fierce AND FAST.

BUT... even amidst the pain of contractions (although some women have painless births with hypnobabies, mine WAS NOT!), I felt so... in control. There was no fear. I welcomed the pain of the contractions, rather than tense up and fight it like my prior births. I don't even have the words to explain it... other than I felt so confident and, yay, in control. Only when it became clear that baby was crowning and the doctor still hadn't arrived, did I start to panic and feel overwhelmed by the pain. I do wish that he'd arrived sooner and I'd been able to stay relaxed throughout, but it was just too fast!

So fast that there are no pictures! *sob*

I'd gotten the camera all charged and ready to go, brought it into the room and set it on the shelf... where it remained untouched throughout the entire labour and birth. Being a photographer, I'd really hoped for wonderful images to remember this, my last, birth.

But what I do have are wonderful memories of a quick, intense and empowering birth welcoming this amazingly sweet little soul into the world. Our sweet little Eloise who we've spent the last two weeks getting to know and love.

Next up, a post about the placenta in our freezer. Not to be missed.

he would be five

Another year has passed.

Another year with a hole in our family right between Liam and Simon. This hole is imperceptible to most -even those who know it exists- but, to me, it's gaping. This hole should contain a little boy whose birthday we would be celebrating today. A likely loud and crazy five year old to add to the already loud and crazy chaos that reigns here most days.

It's a Nathaniel-shaped hole.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Because Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is October 15th each year, and the anniversary of Nathaniel's birth and death is October 19th, the middle of this month is always rather... emotionally charged. Even if I wanted to "forget" this day was coming, it would be impossible.

Not that I want to forget. THAT would be impossible.

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Five years later, I can say that the sting of Nathaniel's death has gone out of my memories of him (hazy, dream-like images seen through the heavy fog of exhaustion and powerful anaesthetic drugs). The searing intensity of grief and loss has ebbed. The rawness is gone. The pain is still there, but it's more of an ache. A dull roar rather than a piercing scream that tears through my heart without any warning. A throbbing that lies below the surface, always present, but now covered over by the experiences and life lived over the last five years... including the addition of two life-filled little boys and the anticipation of the newest member of our family. 

But it is hard not to wonder what our life would be like with him still in it... what HE would be like.

An almost-black-haired little boy with eyes that would have likely turned some shade of brown, like Andrews. I'm sure that, like Liam and Simon, he'd love all things Lego and Star Wars and Clone Wars and Bionicles, and would gravitate towards heros like Indiana Jones and Iron Man and knights and soldiers and super heros. I know he would laugh at America's Funniest Home Videos and Garfield comics and Wipeout along with his brothers.

I wonder if he'd sit quietly and spellbound during our readings of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia like his older brother, Liam, or if he'd squirm in his bed like his two younger brothers. I wonder if he'd prefer soccer or hockey. If he'd have allergies like Simon and Andrew, or be able to eat anything like Liam. If he'd be reading on his own yet, or riding a bike without training wheels. I wonder what his personality would be like. What would be his strengths and weaknesses? What kind of brother would he be? What kind of son?

I do know that he would be loved.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Somewhere today, that sweet boy who I will have to wait my lifetime to know is celebrating his fifth birthday with his cousin, Lachlan, and with his grandpa, my dad. He is perfect and whole and healthy and happy. He is being toasted by angels and sung to by family and friends who have passed before. He is surrounded by love and light and the glory of God. 

And he is loved.

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

For those of you who are new(ish) to this blog, here is the video we played at Nathaniel's service. For those who've been reading for awhile, no obligation to watch it again. I know it's not a "fun" thing to watch. It is, however, almost all we have. The little box of mementos from the hospital -his bracelets, copies of his hand and foot prints, the comb we used to brush his hair, the tiny preemie sleeper we dressed him in- all those things are thousands of miles away in a storage facility in Ottawa. And his little grave is next to his cousin's in Regina.

And so we watch his video and experience again the wonder of his birth, the pain of his loss, and the love we will always feel for our sweet boy, Nathaniel Achaziah Bundy.      

Star Wars party ideas

Those who've been reading my blog for a while will likely remember the series I did on the Star Wars Lego party we threw for Liam's 6th birthday. Although that series -aptly entitled "How to Host a Star Wars Party in 5 Excruciatingly, Painstakingly Detailed Steps"- has much more detailed how-to information, here's the nitty gritty:

Step 1: The Plan

My initial plan involved creating themed invitations, making pool noodle lightsabers, a Death Star pinata, kicking around a Death Star beach ball, and giving out Clone Wars kites in lieu of goodie bags, as well as letting each child take home a lightsaber. That summer, there was Clone Wars merchandise all over the place, so that made things easier.

Step 2: The Invitation

By taking and merging several screen shots from the Lego.com site, I was able to put together a truly awesome invitation, that I'm just now realizing was hosted on a photo site that I let lapse. Oops. But trust me, it was AWESOME.

Part 3: The Lightsabers

Truly a labour of love, these lightsabers took me hours to complete. Each was different. Each was super detailed. Each involved painstakingly cutting out tiny strips and squares of electricians tape and duct tape. But they, too, were awesome. 

Part 4: The Fondant

This cake required fondant to decorate properly. It was my first try making marshmallow fondant and I loved not only the process, but also the result. It's much easier than it looks, and each subsequent attempt became easier and the result more impressive. Plus, you can't go wrong with kids and taking sugar (the marshmallows), adding more sugar and then covering a sugar-filled cake... AND THEN SENDING THEM HOME.

Part 5: The Cake
For a full step-by-step of how I constructed this cake, you'll have to click on the link above. For now, a few pictures will have to suffice.

next to my then 4 1/2 month old

Part 6: The Pinata

For the Pinata, we simply made a (wonky shaped) ball by covering a balloon with papier mache. We probably put seven or eight layers of paper on it, each time letting it dry hanging on the clothes line. I was most worried about how we would hang it and how to make it strong enough to let the kids all have a few whacks at it. In the end, it was plenty strong enough. We painted it with two shades of grey paint, then let Liam do the final detail. I love how it turned out!

In the end, it was a lot of work beforehand, but the day of the party was relatively stress-free and it was all worth it in the end. All of the guest had a super fun time and the birthday boy was made to feel love and special and celebrated.

TOTALLY worth it.

Links to how we did it:

pre-party planning and ideas
the invitation how-to
pool noodle lightsabers
marshmallow fondant
the cake (in less than 100 pictures)

the big day

* * * * * * * * * *

Need some party supplies? Want to make your own pool noodle lightsabers? Check these links below and have it all delivered to your door. If you find any of these links are broken or sold out, let me know and I'll find some new sources. Wouldn't the minifigure ice cube trays be fun? They could be used for ice (obviously), chocolate, or even to make Lego man crayons!

Disclosure: I'm a member of the Amazon Affiliates programs. This means that if you purchase an item from a link from this blog to those shops, I will receive an affiliate commission. However, I only share products and services that I would personally use and that I hope will be a good fit for you.

rainbow cake: part II

This post is for all those wondering how I made the rainbow cake for the princess castle cake I did last weekend. It really wasn't hard, just took some steps. After mixing up the cheapest some simple white boxed cake, I divided the batter into six bowls and mixed a different food colouring into each bowl. Take note that I didn't use your grocery store brand liquid food colouring, but the professional icing colour gels meant for cake decorating (like these). While I'm not normally a fan of food dye (especially for kids), there's just no way to get these kinds of vibrant colours with natural dyes.

They're even brighter when cooked. Serious.

these pictures weren't edited at all (not even white balance... ugh. sorry.)

It would've been better to bake each colour individually so I'd end up with six half cakes, but I only had to round pans and I didn't feel like spending all afternoon in the kitchen, pouring, filling, levelling, baking, cooling, removing, re-greasing, re-pouring... you get the picture. So instead I did two colours per pan. Below you can see a bit of the first colour peeking through around the edges.

Since two boxes of cake batter should have made four cakes, but I was only using three, I didn't want to fill the pans right up for fear of cleaning -albeit cheerfully coloured- cake batter out of the bottom of the oven. I used the leftover batter to make a square cake, pouring each layer into the pan as evenly as possible. I thought I might need this extra cake to build/repair parts of the castle, or if we needed extra cake for extra people, but ended up taking it to church where it was inhaled by some very excited, very amazed 3-9 year olds.

messy and pretty at the same time

The layers of rainbow cake made up the main body/section of the castle, while the towers were made of rice krispie treats. All in all, it was, yes a bit of work, but also a huge success. 

almost as good as my Lego Star Wars cake

(If you didn't read about the ridiculous amount of time I spent making Liam's Lego Star Wars' Clone Wars Commander Fox cake last year, here's the link.)

I didn't bother with all the step-by-step pictures I did with the Star Wars cake, partly because it was late, partly because I was lazy, but also because I didn't have a clear idea of what it was going to look like when finished. I started out with a three layer round cake, made some rice krispie towers and went from there.

For the tops of the towers, I mixed some of the leftover icing with a bit of corn syrup then brushed three ice cream cones with the mixture,

 and covered them with pink-dyed sugar.

beer bottles made for an excellent drying rack

Having covered everything in white marshmallow fondant and decided on a final placement of the towers the night before, it was the final details that remained.

And I'm nothing if not a glutton for punishment when it comes to the details.

I kneaded the remaining white fondant with a bit of pink food dye (the gel kind intended for cake decorating) and used this to make the door, the little windows and dozens of little pink bricks. When I did Liam's Lego Star Wars cake, I added all of the fondant details with lines of icing... isn't that how they do it on Ace of Cakes? I thought it was, but after this cake, I'm re-thinking that. This time, I used a paint brush dipped in water and it worked SO well and was SO less messy. I'd lay half a dozen little bricks on the palm of my hand, face down, brush them all with water then stick them on. There was no need even to hold them in place. Super easy. I also made little round "stones" to squish into a cobble stone path.

I painstakingly cut out the letters to Mélo's name using the tip of a butter knife... then remembered I have a set of alphabet cookie cutters on the top shelf of my pantry. Nice.

ready to surprise the birthday girl

I'd offered to make this cake for the daughter of my good friend, Valérie. The party was a princess theme (if you hadn't caught that already). Mélo turned four and there's just no more perfect age for an all-out girly princess party, complete with princess dress-up clothes, twirling, dancing, more twirling, costume jewelry, make-up, a tea party, and even a visit from a "real live princess" (someone dressed as Snow White). 

We'd managed to keep the cake out of sight from the time I arrived with it, and I gave her dad the honour of being the one to bring it out to her. Here's her reaction... Priceless right? The bottom left picture is the only one that really shows it, but she was clapping the whole time it was being walked over. 

Clapping and squealing.

After she blew out the candles, I told her that there was a surprise INSIDE THE CAKE and that she'd have to cut into it to see what it was.

Did you ever see a happier birthday girl? And did you ever see a more shockingly bright cake?? Even with the picture being a bit washed out, it's still amazingly vibrant. She was so, so excited. 

SO EXCITED. 

I will admit that it was a lot of work, but every time I look at those pictures of her face when the cake was brought out, I'm reminded why I did it. You only have one 4th birthday party, and that window of blissful excitement over princesses-and-castles-and-rainbows-and-everything-pink-and-sparkly-and-over-the-top-girly closes WAY too soon.

Happy Birthday, Mélo.