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A Birth Story - Alex Sheldon Blum

                I had a plan, you know. Or at the very least, an outline of one. I wasn’t so arrogant as to think I would actually make it to my c-section date, but I was fairly confident there would be a c-section.                 Let’s back up a bit. About two weeks ago, I cried wolf and Sheldon ended up taking me to the Barrhead hospital, and then on to the Sturgeon hospital, thinking baby was about to make an appearance. Turns out I was just dehydrated, laid in a hospital bed for a couple hours drinking a horrific amount of water, and went sheepishly but gratefully home.                 Braxton Hicks have always been a thorn in my side. Or a pain in my stomach, I suppose. But never a pain in my back. So in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, when I started to feel contraction like pains in my back, a little red flag went up. They were annoying, but not horrible, and I dozed off and on from about 1-3am. The contractions then came around to the front, still not horrible, not con
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Catching His Breath - A tale of Childhood Asthma

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                Eli was having A DAY, today. The whine is strong with that one. Almost every sentence he uttered was spoken with a pouting drawl; he took offense to every little thing. When he wasn’t whining, he was wailing. Sitting in his room bawling about the unfairness of not being able to steal toys from the baby. Or not being allowed to turn off the TV when Kadon was watching it. Life is rough, I tell ya.                 Usually when he’s having “one of those days” (and really, even when he isn't), it means this mommy is spending a lot of time cleaning up puke. As many of you know, Eli has had issues with breathing since… well, birth. Any crying leads to coughing, which leads to puking, which leads to me cleaning it up or trying to forestall his tirades instantaneously – which is interesting when said child has a fuse about half a millimeter long.                 Last month Eli was officially diagnosed with asthma at an asthma and allergy specialist clinic in Edmonton. H
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A Rory Meltdown

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A picture showed up in my Facebook memories today. A beautiful picture. This is my little baby belly when Rory was percolating inside. Not very far along, my belly was swelling with the sign of new life for the very first time. After 2.5 years of struggling with infertility and countless trips to the city to see specialists, we found something that worked. I injected myself in the stomach to force ovulation. We did two rounds of this. Usually you do up to 4 rounds and if that doesn’t work, it’s the end of the road before IVF. I didn’t do the usual “pee on a stick” test. I could have, but I waited for the official phone call after doing bloodwork on the allotted day. I didn’t think I could handle looking at another one of those blasted things and see the one lonely line one more time. (In hindsight, I really should have bought those things in bulk.) I remember where I was when the phone call came. I was curled up in the basement in our oversized, black, leather chair. I knew
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Parenting Musings

I try not to complain about my kids too much online. My blog posts about them are usually light hearted; a documentation of the things that made me smile, with maybe a few things that drove me crazy but with a funny twist. I don’t write “My kids made me cry today”, or “I screamed so loudly at my children today that my throat hurts”. Those aren’t funny stories. Those aren’t things I want to document or remember. But you know what? Sometimes it happens. And my goal in this online world is to always be real. Open. Honest. I don’t want anyone struggling with things I’m struggling with to think they are alone.                 Sometimes when you look around it can look like everyone has it all together. Or that even when things are going wrong they are finding humour in it or handling it with such grace and poise. I’ve even done that with certain areas of my life. I won’t often write about my depression until it has lifted. I don’t often share in the moment. It’s hard to know what to shar
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Chasing Down Thoughts - Loving this body in its "as is" condition.

                This whole thing was going to be a private message to my sisters. Then, as I was rambling on in my head, composing my thoughts internally until I could get to my computer, I realized I may as well turn it into a blog post. Or a novel, as I seem to be particularly rambly these days.                 I’ve been thinking about this particular topic for awhile now. Weight loss. Health. Body image. Cultural conformity. Unrealistic body expectations. I’ve been at war with my body for most of my life. I remember as a pre-teen being terrified that someone would find out my weight. I was ashamed of the number on my jeans. It kind of makes me sad to think about.                 Maybe it has come with getting older, but lately I have been wanting to reconcile with my body. To love it. To accept it. We’ve been through a lot together. Too often when I get on one of those “weightloss kicks” it is preceded by hating my body. By calling it disgusting. By looking in the mirror and fe
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Capturing Memories

Who was it that said that the days are long but the years are short? Whoever it was, they are very wise. I have to register my older son for kindergarten. KINDERGARTEN. It was just yesterday I was in the NICU with him, holding him skin-to-skin. Just yesterday I was coaxing first smiles and giggles out of him. Just yesterday he starting army crawling; just yesterday he took his first steps.                 At four and a half, Kadon seems so grown up. He copies older kids’ mannerisms, he deepens his voice and shrugs his shoulders. His vocabulary is crazy, even if his enunciation is not. (Case in point: he often says “also”, instead of “too”.)                 He loves going to Pre-School. He goes once a week on Wednesday and by Friday he’s asking to go again. He happily went to VBS all last week. Dropping him off places is no longer an issue. He has friends, he has his own sense of humour, his own ideas and plans. He’s a master LEGO builder, building large sets meant for 7-14 year ol
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Silas Philip - His Birth Story

                I love birth stories. I love to hear other women’s stories, and I love telling and re-telling my own. Usually, I’ve written out the birth story in the first week, but we are over 3 weeks now (ahem… he’s over a month now…), and I’m just now sitting down, hoping I haven’t already forgotten any little detail.                 I’m glad I wrote out my other birth stories. It’s amazing how quickly the mind glazes over things, or lumps details all together. I’d be visiting with a friend and we’d be talking about birth and I’d be wracking my brain trying to remember if a certain situation had happened during which birth. I like that I have a written record.                 My pregnancy with Silas was my first ever “normal” pregnancy. I only went to emergency once in the early months, as I had some light bleeding (on Rory’s birthday, of course). That was my only emergency ultrasound and obviously, everything turned out fine. I very nearly made it the whole pregnancy without
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