So as October came to a close I finished off a long five week hitch - my last - in Malongo, Cabinda, Angola. I was strangely surprised how sad I was to see myself leaving. I discovered that I actually really liked my job. I mean, I had never disliked work, but I was really feeling proficient, feeling like I was in the groove, rocking & rolling, getting things done, making a difference, and mostly making contributions to improving how we drilled wells. And then suddenly it was over. Poof. 2 years had come and gone just like that. And I was suddenly sad to leave. Sad to leave the people whom I had spent more time with in the last two years than my family, sad to leave such a beautiful (yet backwards) country, sad to leave behind Angolans who are some of the friendliest people I've ever met, and sad to say me and T's travelling days were more than likely behind us for a while as the baby would be with us soon. It felt like something was coming to an end that I wasn't just ready to let go... but be that as it may, with the babe in my belly fast approaching 30 weeks old, mommyhood was just around the corner.
So I boarded the last plane for my final trip back to Canada. I took a glorious month off work after a long 5 week hitch and then worked two weeks from home to bank enough time to start my maternity leave in January. We had a restful Christmas in Sylvan Lake / Lethbridge and then settled into baby watch 2010. I was so paranoid about being caught without Troy when I went into labor that I didn't let him stray very far outta my sight for four weeks before the due date. Little did we know he could have gone back to Angola for another hitch because we just kept waiting and waiting and waiting for our day to arrive.
Finally, at 42 weeks we were scheduled for an induction. The babe was growing big (they estimated 9 lbs & 13oz) from the ultrasound and it was time to give him a push to join us. After 3 days of pre-labor we finally went into labor on our own a night before our scheduled induction. Contractions were very close together so we went in to the hospital on Wednesday night thinking I'd be punching the baby out in no time. But it wasn't to be. I was sent home to run the house outta hot water twice trying to ease the labor. There are no words to describe the pain. We were trying for a natural birth, but due to the position of the baby (face up) I was in for an excruciating treat called back labor. I could not have an epidural early on so unfortunately I had to endure roughly 16 hrs of it until I could get some sweet relief & some much needed rest.
The labor progressed well & we made it all the way almost to the finish. We tried one round of pushing & then the doc stepped out to get another doc and we knew something was up. Dr. O'Keene, an old irish doc, came in & took a quick look. The prognosis wasn't good. The baby was too big for my little hips & was NOT going to come out the right way. I begged for another two hours, he shook my belly and said "listen little lady - I've birthed 1000s of babies. You are all belly and this baby ain't coming out on it's own", and then gave me two more hours to try. By that time my body had run out of jam & he wasn't going to come out naturally. At 11:44pm on Thursday Feb 17th, 2010 Ryker Lance Graham joined the world and we were now a family of 3.
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