Whoa. What a hurricane of emotion the past six weeks have been!

First of all, the love. Man oh man the love for this human who never used to exist before, then was the size of a poppyseed, then kicked and kicked his way to 9 months. Watching him change and develop over the past six weeks has been mind blowing. He really does have a personality.

I keep feeling in such awe of reproduction in general. It feels so insane, the wildest thing that exists in life to GROW a LIFE inside your body. Sustain it with your body. Watch him become, feel and think. And yet, it’s the most common thing there is - it’s how all of us got here. It blows my mind still, every day.

I know many struggle with reproduction and I assumed I’d be one. If not physically, I at least assumed I’d be held up psychologically. I have a history of sexual assault, and had a difficult time in some relationships. More recently, after a pretty bad relationship in my early 30s, I really struggled with dating and couldn’t for the life of me imagine being comfortable enough to share a bed, let alone a life with someone. I figured I’d be crippled in this area for life, so I went on focusing on my love for training, and floundering in my personal life. I always worried, during this time, that I’d never be able to be a mother. I’d never get the chance because I’d never feel at ease alongside a partner ever again.

Long story short, a few sessions with a wonderful therapist helped me to untangle the discord I had within. I became increasingly honest with myself, and also self-compassionate which had always been amiss on a deeper level. When I met Guillermo, we were both warm and kind, present and honest, transparent and ready to give life our all. I have to say, we’ve had about two arguments in our relationship, which in my experience is pretty damn good. Great things can happen when you really face your own sh*t (we’ve all got some), and get optimistic and forthright.

I felt uncomfortable at first sharing my pregnancy, and my experience with birth and motherhood because I know that there are couples out there, and women especially, who are unable to carry. I tend to anticipate this kind of reception early enough to keep me from celebrating things in my life sometimes, and I realize that’s not really helpful either. It’s important that we all be earnest. That we be empathetic toward one another, and also as happy as we possibly can be. In short, to always feel it all.

What a perfect segway to direct this post back to early motherhood: FEELING IT ALL.

Hormones, yep - sure. But I haven’t quite come to grips with the pain I feel when the baby is screaming with gas pain. When I can’t perfect my approach to make sure he feels 100% delightful at every moment. When he is crying in pain, I try my best to stay strong, sweet and calm. But occasionally, I thrust him at Guillermo and break down completely. What am I eating that is ripping his gut apart like this? How do you possibly deal with the guilt of physically hurting a tiny, vulnerable, sweet little human? Man, it’s tough. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through.

His smiles lift me higher than anything, his cries feel like absolute torture. This is, I’ve decided, what is the most exhausting part of motherhood.

ALL. THE. FEELINGS. All the time.

Well, I did decide this platform could be more of an unbridled ramble than a concise and well-written fitness blog. Here we have it.

Early motherhood is not a straight road, there are no clear and sure resolutions. Every win is flimsy and short-lived, and thus the path is jagged, staggered and as fussy as Hugo is. There is no thesis.

There is so much beauty in the wild, though. So much.

{Speaking of beauty, my next post will be on the 3 min makeup routine I’ve discovered that perks me up in the one long, never-ending frumpy day I live while tending baby :) }

New Baby / Birth Story — Welcoming my first baby boy

Welcome.

In the weeks leading up to the birth of our son, Hugo Elliot Garcia, I wanted to give myself a new platform on which to share. The main reason being that I knew with the morphing of my life, I could expect my business to become adaptive as well. Rather than swarm my business site, thechangetraining.com with a ton of more personal content, I wanted to create a new space that felt more representative of my personal life and family space. Over here, I will be unbridled and unrestricted, allowing my personal and business lives to merge and evolve as they will naturally.

I went into labour on May 26th around 7:30pm, ironically at a last-minute midwife appointment. I had asked her to check my amniotic fluid. On the drive there, I was having cramps. On the way home, they intensified and were swiftly 5 minutes apart. Over the next few hours they edged 3 minutes apart and became incredibly painful. This was surprising, as I figured given my excruciating menstrual cramps pre-pregnancy, I expected to excel (!) at pre-labour without much fuss. Now, how to make a long story somewhat short? With the addition of strange bleeding, Guillermo and I went to hospital forcing the midwife to meet us there around 11:30pm. Despite being at about a 7/10 for pain, I was only 1cm dilated! The midwife gave me a shot of gravol, told me to go home and try my best to sleep, and page again in the morning. I was in so much pain I vomited in the parking garage on the way back to the car. Oops! The gravol helped me to sleep for 2 minutes at a time, in between my 3-minutes-apart contractions, until 8am.

At 8am on May 27th, I was in so much pain I decided to go to the hospital and start pain meds.

Now, the funny part is that I was completely prepared for an unmedicated, birth centre birth! I had read so much information and so many birth stories leading up to Hugo’s birth, planning my brain to handle the “waves” of labour. For whatever reason, pre-labour contractions were intolerable. I had never felt anything like them. I describe them to Guillermo as some stinging, shrieking, metallic pain. Now, I know for a fact that this is not common. Most people hit hard pain around the 6-8cm point.

So here we are, the morning of May 27th, 2 cm dilated and getting an epidural. I felt like such a wuss! But man - once the epidural kicked in, I was so glad I had gone to hospital. And it’s a great thing that we did, because there were a few more problems that followed over the course of the day.

Guillermo and the midwife and I kind of hung out, for hours. We chatted, waited, watched as things shifted. Unfortunately the epidural slowed the dilation, so the midwife applied some oxytocin to get things moving. By about 4cm, she opted to break my waters. And low and behold, the baby had had his first bowel movement in the amniotic fluid, called meconium. This can cause lung and breathing problems after birth, so we had the Resuscitation Team on standby to come help him once he arrived. The oxytocin used to counter the epidural began to slow the baby’s heart rate, so we had to shuffle meds for the right balance to move things along, but to keep the baby healthy.

Around 5:30pm, I was 9.5 cm dilated and it was go time. I was suddenly super nervous, but I couldn’t feel any pain. Zero. I was surprised at this, I assumed I’d still feel SOME pain! We started to push. I was cued to tuck my chin, untuck my pelvis, push and hold my breath for 15 seconds. This went against everything I read about effective pushing. I wanted to use my core, use my breathing, open my pelvic floor. These cues went against my understanding of physiology, and I had a terrible time following instruction in a way that felt progressive. His head would come down, and whip back up, over and over. Not only that, I felt like my head was going to explode. I had so much head pressure, that my heart rate was up at 165bmp and I started throwing up suddenly. Guillermo, by the way, could see everything. He was helping me push, watching me bleed everywhere, catching my vomit in a small bowl, and being an overall impressive hero who had formerly been terrified of the tiniest splatter of blood!

I initiated trying other positions to push, but the fetal heart rate monitor kept sliding off and the midwives were irked by my attempts. And gave up and persisted under their direction. (Ugh.)

Finally, Hugo came out! However, this moment wasn’t the glorious moment we see in the movies. His head was badly cone-shaped from the may failed attempts, but more importantly his head was purple and his body was limp. He was barely breathing, barely grunting. They got him to the RT right away, and I watched my baby in the corner struggle to breathe. Guillermo and I tried not to panic. I had seen this scene in tv shows and in the movies. The baby can be okay. He will be fine. But, I couldn’t celebrate. They tried to pass him back for skin-to-skin, but he still was grunting for breath and the midwife was asking me to push my placenta out at the same time. I asked them to take the baby and help him.

The most physically uncomfortable part of the day had yet to begin. My placenta, after 40 minutes, was still not detaching. The baby was in another area with the RT, on a CPAC machine. Guillermo was checking on him, and I was trying to focus on getting my placenta out. Sadly, it had to be removed by an OB fellow (no one else was available, and even he could not arrive until 2 hours after birth).

Two hours after birth, I had an OB fellow reach his entire forearm inside me and begin manually removing my placenta. Um, it did not come out easily. He struggled, and he was surprised. Blood everywhere.

Without a doubt, this was not what I expected for my birth. In fact, nothing in early motherhood has been what I expected. I will share the first month of motherhood in my next post. But what I will say is that I was ready for challenge, I was ready for a life-changing love. And a life-changing love in the greatest capacity is exactly what was to come of this day.

May 27th, 6:27pm, my favourite new human turned me on my head (almost literally). Welcome, sweet boy.