Hi There. My name is Christine, Founder of Fit Mama Training in Toronto. On May 1st, we welcomed our second baby girl. It was the middle of March when we were enjoying our last family vacation in Florida when news of the Coronavirus hit, that it was officially declared a global pandemic. Schools and businesses at home were said to close along with international borders in the near future. I was 32 weeks pregnant so you can imagine the state of anxiety I was in about getting home safely with my family. We travelled home with no issues, and went right into self quarantine. We thought it would last two weeks, but here we are in week 8 and we are still self isolating like everybody else.
I started the Fit Mama Training community after I had my first daughter Bella about 2 years ago. We are a fitness company geared towards women, specifically moms looking to get into shape after having a baby. I found that the support from other moms on this precious journey is powerful. I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to go through the whole prenatal and postpartum journey again. This time I'd like to share my personal experiences here with you, in this blog.
Welcome to my first blog post!
Our birth story
I love hearing birth stories so I’m going to share ours. Anxiety started to grow in me about heading to the hospital during this pandemic so my midwife suggested a home birth. I was open to the idea since I really wanted one with Bella but she was breech so a cesarean birth was imminent. ⠀
I started having contractions at 1am so I called my midwife. From there everything progressed quite nicely. I reached 8 cm dilation in about 6 hours and then the baby decided to turn her head in the wrong direction which stopped all progress. So here we were another 3 hours of natural, raw animal labour with no progress. The contractions were getting so intense and close together that when my midwife suggested going to the hospital, I was pretty much begging for an epidural.
I’m going to pause for a moment and say kudos to every woman who has delivered a baby naturally. That sh$! is not easy.
Although we were anxious about entering the doors of a hospital during Covid, our experience was mostly positive and our midwife, nurses and doctor took such good care of us. If anything, the maternity ward was quiet and serene, especially after I received my epidural. We spent 10 gloriously drugged hours at the hospital with hopes that I would fully dilate and they could manually turn the baby. It seems I have very stubborn girls so I had come to terms with potentially having another cesarean birth. But with some luck and persistence, I became fully dilated and the amazingly patient Dr. Levey at St. Joseph's hospital helped turn the baby as I pushed. The most difficult part of giving birth at the hospital during the pandemic was wearing a mask during labour, especially when it came time to push. It felt as though someone was holding their hand over my mouth as I had to take the deepest breaths possible. I had to dig deep and make it work. Think about the nurses and doctors in the room that have to wear protective gear on their bodies and face 24/7 to protect their lives. I could do this. And it turned out to be one of the most amazing moments in my life. The doctor asked if I wanted to pull her out myself, and after 20 hours of labour I was like hells yes, we did it! ⠀
I don’t believe in birth plans for myself. Babies will find their way into this world on their own terms, pandemic or not. Sometimes you just need to keep an open mind and go with the flow. The most important thing is that you will meet your baby one way or another.
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