The Pregnancy
By: Mike Dove
Tags: Family, Pregnancy, Baby

I’ve been having some troubles lately, some mental health struggles. Nothing serious, I guess. But in the middle of a Pandemic, with lockdowns and stuff, I can’t see anyone, so I decided to write. Go easy on me. I’ve never done this before. This story is about us moving to NB and having a baby.

You see, we moved to New Brunswick from Nova Scotia in June of 2019 for my job. This is my dream job. And my wonderfully supportive wife did not hesitate to give up her great job to come with me, knowing there would be little if any work for her here, but that’s who she is.

Two weeks after we move, a grand total of 11 days after I started my career, I get the most wonderful surprise. My wife — who isn’t my wife yet — is pregnant. We’re excited, we’re scared, we’re happy, we’re nervous. All of those things you feel when you first find out, we had.

After this, no matter what we did, we did bearing in mind the fact that she had a little being growing inside of her. Everything we did, we did to protect and ensure he would be OK. My wife got apps on her phone to track the size of the baby and everything. It was cute, really. I’m telling you this, because on one occasion, and I’ll never in my life forget it, early on in the pregnancy, the app told my wife our little baby was the size of a sprinkle. Cute. That day we were in Fredericton, because Woodstock has nothing and we wanted to get out for a bit. We’re at Dairy Queen, I get a blizzard, she gets a sundae I think. I love Chocolate Brownie blizzards. So that’s what I get. Before I take a bite, I look down on the spoon, and on this spoon, is a sprinkle. Those blizzards don’t have those. What are the chances? I’m not a religious guy, but holy hell that made me wonder.

Fast forward to August 31st, 2019. It’s our wedding day. We’re getting married in this beautiful church in the Cape Breton Highlands. Her parents, and her grand parents were married in this church. This is the church she has come to since she was born. She was baptized here. I myself am not religious, but I would have never objected to getting married here. The weather was beautiful, a nice 25 degree day, sun and blue sky, little wind. Perfection. Reception at the Fire Hall, beautifully decorated. My family, her family, all celebrating us. It was truly a perfect day. My best man, Shawn, happened to accidentally drop the ball and announced our pregnancy. You see we had told our immediate family and our wedding party because, well, my wife needed to be able to explain why she was not having champagne on her wedding day. But the rest of our family and friends were in the dark. Shawn asked me if there was anything he should leave out of the toast. I said nothing too embarrassing, and that was it. Oops. Shawn announces it in a way that doesn’t make it obvious that that’s what he meant. Half the people understood, the other half didn’t. We laughed, and decided to announce to everyone, because the cat was out of the bag.

Fast forward to October 2019. We decide the two bedroom apartment isn’t big enough so we start looking for a house. I don’t think we were serious at first. But then we got pre-approved and got the ball rolling. We found a beautiful little house that needed a little bit of work. We put the offer in and in November it was accepted. We weren’t able to get out of our lease until January, so we put the closing date for then. This gave us a lot of time to pack, which, as her pregnancy was progressing, it was not super easy for her. She had a lot of pains associated with her pregnancy. Back pain, hip pain, etc. She missed out on the morning sickness so that was nice. So another big event happens in October. It’s the season opener for hockey, we’re excited. But we also have an appointment. We find out that we’re having a baby boy. I was positive it was gonna be a girl, but was very much hoping for a boy.

Fast forward to some time in December. We have an appointment and they tell us that our little guy has a big head. No big deal. But they keep telling us that our baby is gonna be big. Here I am, expecting a line backer for a baby.

January 2020, we purchased our first home. 2019 is busy. I get a new career, we move provinces, she gets pregnant, we decide to buy a house.. So we figured we’d start 2020 off with a bang too and buy a house. We buy a cute little three bedroom home in the country. We have a few neighbours, they’re great. The very day we closed on the house, we started painting the baby’s room. Well, I started to. My wife tried and had to bail out after a few rolls with the roller. She was a month away from giving birth and was not exactly feeling like painting.

We start having more frequent appointments in January to check on her and the baby. They detect that she has elevated amniotic fluid levels. We don’t know what that means so we’re freaking out. They refer us to Fredericton for the OB clinic to keep a better eye on things. These appointments come once per week. At one of these appointments they express concern over her blood pressure. They advise us to keep an eye on it. So we start frequenting the pharmacy for the BP machine.

The next appointment, Feb 2nd or close to there, my wife suggests bringing the hospital bags just in case. Her due date is the 21st, but they kept saying “big baby, big baby, big baby” and we feel like it’s going to happen sooner. I will whole heartedly admit I laughed off the suggestion of bringing our bags. We don’t need them. You’re not giving birth today. Ha. Ha. Ha. We get to Fredericton, to the OB clinic, they check her blood pressure… It’s high. Her blood pressure is always perfect. Like, cool as a god damn cucumber perfect. So her BP being high is strange. So then the OB says “Go to Labour and Delivery, now” and we look at each other in this sort of panic. I think the source of my panic was more shit, I was wrong. So we get to the hospital, and they check her BP, it’s high, but lower than it was at the OB clinic. phew. I asked what would happen if it stayed high, and the doctor suggested we would probably not be leaving until the baby comes. So of course now I can’t even look at my wife because I’m like, shit, I was wrong, just play it off. Anyway, no baby comes, they check her out, she’s good, we leave. I think I’ve made it out of the woods and then I get called out for not bringing the bags. Lesson learned I guess. I’m having trouble remembering the order of this whole day because it was a huge scare, but at some point at the OB clinic, I don’t know if we went back after or if this happened before, we picked a date for a scheduled C-Section. We decided on February 10th. So, we’re in the car on the way home, and it finally hits us that the next time we drive home from Fredericton, next week, we’ll have a baby with us. THE baby. Our baby.

February 9th rolls around. I’m working. My wife gets a call, they’re pushing the date of the C-Section to the 11th. No big deal. I submit my paperwork, and February 9th is my last day at work for the next 37 weeks.

February 11th comes. We get up, we check our hospital bags, the diaper bags, check on the cat, cry a little, and we leave our new house knowing that this is the last time that we’re going to be here with just the two of us.