The Details...

LISA -

My holidays started off in a very memorable way - I had a baby!

Greta Olive Alm was born on Saturday, December 20 at 9:04am. I was so looking forward to my first holiday sleep-in but instead, I woke up even earlier than normal and actually haven't been able to sleep in since!

Our little girl had perfect timing though - waiting 15 hours after school was out to begin her descent down the birth canal. She must have known how much I didn't want her to appear during Carol Singing Friday morning. :) She weighed exactly 7 lbs, was 19 inches long and was absolutely adorable right off the bat (and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom).

It's been an extremely sharp learning curve for me considering I have never even held a newborn before (and barely any other babies either). However, 8 days later, everything is going unbelievably well. Greta's the most contented little girl (so far anyway!) and Anders and I are thrilled to be first time parents!

Anders, being the English teacher he is, documented our birth experience.

ANDERS -

As many of you know, my little family of two (Lisa and me) has been expecting an addition to arrive over the holidays. The anticipation was building as the holiday season came. However, within 14 hours of leaving my classroom, that little baby couldn't wait any longer to meet us.

My extended family came out to Calgary on Dec.19th for an early Christmas get-together. It was great to be on holidays! We enjoyed a great dinner on Friday, and the excitement of some early gift-opening for the next day is what the holidays are about. However, the holiday season can create other situations that are completely out of one's control.

At 3:30am, I was awakened by Lisa, who related a nightmarish dream she had only moments before.

She was in a labour & delivery room of a hospital. In the room were many co-workers from Rundle Elementary (Lisa teaches kindergarten there) socializing in a party-like atmosphere. Nobody seemed to be bothered by the fact they were in a delivery room or the fact Lisa was experiencing extremely painful contractions as they talked. As if this wasn't bad enough, Lisa also noticed that I was sitting in a corner, texting on my cell phone.

As Lisa retold the nightmare, I heard a sharp "Anders! Are you even listening to me?" and realized that I'd actually drifted back to sleep.

"That sounds terrible," I answered. "But I would never text during class."

I have been known to say some incredible things in what I like to refer to as the transition zone to alert wakefulness.

In the next moment, Lisa's nearly falling off the bed and doubled over with pain. Fully awake now, I waited until it subsided and tried to figure out if she could tell me how many times that had happened during the night. But before I could get the question out of my mouth, another contraction came. In our prenatal classes, our instructor had said that if the contractions are within a couple minutes of each other and you aren't at the hospital yet, it could be problematic.

Theoretically, none are prepared for this moment. But we really weren't prepared for this yet. There was still supposed to be another 11 days to get completely mentally and physically ready. We still needed to pack the hospital bags. I was frantically throwing clothes into Lisa's bag and grabbing stuff for the baby as well. Lisa was doubled over again in the hallway, on her hands and knees shaking. I ran out to the garage to take the bags to the car. I ran back inside to see where Lisa was. She was in the same spot. When we were finally ready to go, I realized that my sister had parked her car right in front of the garage and had blocked us in. I ran inside and somehow found the keys, but when I went to move the car, it wouldn't start. There are moments in life when you delegate to people standing around waking up from deep sleep. However, sometimes it just happens that you take matters into your own hands. I pushed the car down the driveway, but there was too much snow and it ended up stuck in a snow bank and still blocking our exit. My dad came outside to help, but we couldn't seem to move the car. I was at a loss for what to do. I decided to try the car again and, through some Christmas miracle, it started!

By the time we made it to the hospital and into Labour and Delivery, Lisa was already 8cm dilated and thrown right into the delivery room at around 4:45am. Lisa was amazingly strong, even when there was a shift change at 8am and the doctor delivering the baby left. The new doctor was equal to the task, and Lisa found her zone of concentration. She did the birth without any drugged assistance (although she repeatedly questioned why she wasn't asking for an epidural), and the baby didn't waste any time being born at 9:04am on Saturday, December 20th. Greta Olive Alm is beautiful and mellow like her mom and dad. She weighed in at birth at 7lbs even, and was 19 inches long. She and Lisa are doing extremely well and are at home now. We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas present!