No words are truer than the famous quote that reads, "The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new."
Here at WTN Podcast, we see Birth stories as a supportive tool to help prospective and existing mothers along their journey. We understand that no path is the same, but see so much value in centering and highlighting the variety of experiences that Mothers have had. So Bomb Moms, this space is yours! It's here and waiting to honour you, by providing a platform to share your story!
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Stephanie
44 years old
Originally from Montreal, now Ottawa.
2 Opposite Birth Stories
1) my daughter was born April 1st. I woke up in the morning and was standing at the kitchen counter making breakfast. I had on a loose nightgown, something I swear I had never worn till the night before. No undies. All of a sudden, I felt something trickle down my leg. I thought pee for a second till I realized I had just used the washroom 
So, we grabbed our hospital bag and headed out, making calls on the way.
April fools day is big in my husband’s family so when we called people, it took some work convincing people it was really happening. My sister-in-law, a real prankster, was particularly hard to convince. We finally just said: you know what? Believe ya or don’t but it’s happening whether or not you check in! Thank God it was a weekend and my husband was there to take me to the hospital or the disbelief would have been really irritating 
Labour was quite short thankfully, though still crappy. (Is the pain condensed into a smaller time frame??)
Tried the ball, the tub, it was all decidedly unhelpful. Thank God for epidurals lol. So water broke at 9am and I had my daughter by dinner. Kind of a tough work day 🤪
2) For my son, since I had never had to count contractions with my daughter, I didn’t have any experience with that at all. So, contractions started a bit during the day but I thought they were Braxton Hicks. They weren’t regular and they were spaced out. Fast forward to the evening, when they got really intense. However, they still seemed irregular. My husband ended up going to bed while I sat at the computer clicking the button on an online contractions calculator and watching some comedy I’ve forgotten since I couldn’t focus AT ALL.
I finally called the hospital and they knew immediately that I was in labour. I said “but my contractions aren’t regular!” And this is when I found out that they’re still “regular” even if there’s the odd one that is off. Most being regular is all you need 🤦♀️
We called my MIL to watch our daughter because that’s what we had decided to do (she was the only retired grandparent at the time.) She cam immediately but she lived 25 minutes away so it felt like forever. When I talked to my neighbour later, she said “why didn’t you call me?? Uhhh cause brain was NOT FUNCTIONING.)
We got to the hospital and were told that the anesthesiologist wasn’t in the building. He got there, gave me the epidural barely in time and I had him within one hour of arrival at the hospital.
And the last thing I learned is that Codeine keeps me awake. My son and husband slept soundly and I was awake and buzzing all night. Brutal!
