The Meaning of Life Part 1

Part I - Prelude

I'm very pleased to report the arrival of Zachary James Frank Robertson... born here in Ottawa on Thursday August 17th, exactly 9:00am!

Now, 9am... immediately raising questions about whether or not he's really mine. However, there's enough of a resemblance so I can relax...

I tried, unsucessfully, to update this blog via email. Turned out, I had the email address slightly incorrect. So... here's the story, picking up from the last entry.

We did indeed go home following the inducement. Julie said her stomach felt tighter but didn't really think any contractions were happening. We didn't do much that night... thinking (as we had for a couple of weeks) that this was our last night of freedom. By the next morning, she reported her stomach getting pretty tight for about a minute and then it would go away. A couple minutes later, she'd report the same. I consulted the copious notes from the pre-natal class which described these symptoms as 'active labour'. Under the handy arrow drawings I did, it said to go to hospital.

We went to the hospital.

Once again at the triage station for labour/delivery, she was assessed on the monitor, eventually examined by a resident who agreed that yes, things seemed to be moving along finally so that they would admit us. Geez, the things you have to do to get into this club... We were advised to walk around the grounds for a couple of hours "to really get things moving" and then come back.

I got lunch.

I have to say... even though I grew up around hospitals (both parents nurses) and should've known what to expect, hospital food is every bit the stereotype it purports to be. This feeling would be re-inforced over the several days we were there.

Julie walked around a lot, the tightening seemed to be increasing and she was getting a lot of lower back pain. When we went back, a few minutes shy of the two hours, they got us a room... and after a bit of insistence, moved us to a room with a jacuzzi. The jacuzzi helped her back. I was discouraged from having a jacuzzi of my own. There was also much bouncing on an exercise ball, highly preferable to lying in bed. I'd brought 'Noble House' by James Clavell to read. If you've ever seen it, you know it's a sizeable novel. I got through a lot of it. After a few hours of this, not much seemed to be happening.

So they gave her a second inducement, this one via IV. Then more fun started...