As the birth date of our first child was growing nearer and my protruding belly larger, my fears about childbirth also grew. Not having my mother alive to share in such a wonderful and life altering event, I was left to rely on my mother-in-law for her sage advice on childbirth.

Living in a rural area in Nova Scotia, a little under an hour to Halifax, I was aware that timing was to play a huge part in this event. I had been seeing my OB/GYN in Halifax for the past 8 and a half months of my pregnancy and she had politely informed that when my contractions were 7 minutes apart I should head for the IWK Hospital in Halifax.

My due date not being until the 18th of August, 2005, and the weekend before dating the 13-15 of August, 2005, my husband, his family and I headed to our prospective cottages on Molega Lake. This location is give or take an hour and a half from Halifax. The closest hospital being 20 minutes in the nearby town of Bridgewater.

I was feeling fine and none the wiser as I sat at the kitchen table of my in-laws cottage playing cards, followed by eating homemade lemon pie on the doorstep at 10:30pm on the 13th of August, 2005. My husband and I decided it was time to retire to our cottage for the night and get some rest. Again, I was feeling fine. Upon crawling into bed and playing scratch Bingo, I decided I better grab my cell phone and pull up the stop watch mode to monitor what was happening. Unbeknown to my husband, I was having contractions, or what I assumed were contractions. You see, these pings in my stomach were ever so slight, yet consistent. No pain yet. After timing these movements for a short duration I decided I better tell my husband what I thought was taking place. He asked me, "What do we do?" I further suggested that we go to his parents cottage up the hill and ask his mother's opinion.

I'll never forget my husband knocking on their window saying, "Mom", "Mom". "What do we do?" She quickly graced the doorstep and asked what was going on. We proceeded to explain that at this point what we were thinking were contractions were about 5 minutes apart. I guess we were not destined for Halifax as the contractions did not even start off anything longer than 5 minutes apart.

The next few minutes were of confusion as everyone quickly dressed and prepared for the voyage to the local hospital, South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. My husband never drove so fast in all his life, which was

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Memoirs: Birth stories?
We want to hear your view. Write now!