Life on Abram Lake

Curled in bed, we lie face-to-face in the silence. Our knees touch as we clasp our hands between us. Out of darkness, Blake says softly, “I’m so proud of you.” Soundlessly, tears slip onto my pillowcase. “Not many people would have done what you did,” he added. The silence stretches out into a gentle pause. “Thank you for saying that,” I manage as I squeeze his hands tighter, the tears continuing to fall quietly from my face.

It had been just over 24 hours since baby Claire Marie May Candon had made her much awaited entrance into the world and I was finally at home in our own bed. Arriving on Tuesday, February 5th at 6:42pm, Claire had tipped the scales at 7lbs 3oz. and had melted all of our hearts instantly.

The story of Claire’s arrival is one of incredible community, love and support from strangers, close friends and family from both here in Sioux Lookout, from Kingston and in between! Before she had even taken her first breath, Claire was truly loved by so, so many.

After years of disappointment, heartbreak and devastation as Amy and Adam struggled with the dream of a family of their own, Claire’s story from conception to birth is truly miraculous. I feel privileged to not only tell the story of her birth, but to have played such a unique role in her little life. When the news is full of stories of tragedy, it is remarkable to be reminded of the good in humanity and the strength of community.

Amy and Adam arrived to the Sioux Lookout airport on a late Monday night. Bundled in snow pants and parkas, they landed amidst a blowing snowstorm that had delayed them many hours in their journey from Kingston, to Toronto, to Thunder Bay, then finally to Sioux Lookout. Despite the arduous travel day, the frigid conditions and the late hour, they stepped off the plane with huge smiles and obvious excitement. An empty carseat carefully wrapped in a plastic travel bag appeared on the baggage carousel – a poignant reminder of the purpose of their arrival.

After settling Adam and Amy into their temporary Sioux Lookout digs, a little duplex borrowed from a physician colleague of mine who worked intermittently in Sioux Lookout, I drove quietly home. It felt like Christmas Eve – the night heavy with expectation. Our plan was to meet early the next morning at the hospital for a planned induction of labour which meant that if all went well, the constantly wiggling baby girl that I had been carrying since she was a tiny ball of cells would soon be a real human screaming in her parents arms.

Needless to say, I slept very little that night. In latter weeks of my pregnancy with Claire, I was already having a very challenging time with sleep. My nights rattled by vivid, recurring dreams of giving birth on my own, then needing to resuscitate Baby Candon all alone in the labour and delivery room. Combined with calls from the hospital, wicked heartburn and trying to night-train Henry which involved changing him and the bedsheets at least once or twice a night and his 5am morning greetings, I was beyond exhausted. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t looking forward to having Baby C on the worldly side of my belly.

The next morning was a bright, blue-skied, frigid February day so typical of Sioux Lookout winters. The blazing sun tricking your mind into thinking that it wasn’t actually -30 degrees outside. After getting Henry on the school bus, I showered, dressed deliberately and made my way to the hospital, leaving Alice and Blake behind in the middle of a game of hide and seek. I was nervous, excited and anxious about how the day would unfold. All babies are precious, of course, but I admit, I felt a tremendous responsibility to bring this one safely into the world.

While the nurses monitored Baby C for twenty minutes or so, my lovely physician colleague and dear friend Megan Bollinger slipped me a latte to sip on. Laying in the quiet labour and delivery room listening to Baby C’s heartbeat, I felt like I was at the spa. A brief reprieve from the chaos of home and a moment alone to collect my thoughts before the events of the day would soon unfurl.

Eventually, Amy and Adam arrived and we chatted easily until our doctor, and my close friend Lianne Gerber Finn appeared to get the induction started. After performing one of her infamous stretch and sweeps, Lianne administered a prostaglandin medication to gently kick-start my labour. Within ten minutes, I began feeling regular (but mild) contractions. I remember thinking, “Here we go! No turning back now!”

Back at home, I spent the afternoon reading and quietly trying to ignore the regular cramping. By mid-afternoon, I decided to go hang out at Adam and Amy’s place in town as the contractions were coming every 3-4 minutes and the app that I was tracking them on kept notifying me to “GO TO THE HOSPITAL!” 🙂 We spent the afternoon drinking tea and chatting, basking in the bright sunlight reflecting off the ice of Pelican Lake outside their windows. The contractions continued mildly, but steadily. The app continued to urge me to ‘GO TO THE HOSPITAL!’ and when finally, the notification changed to “CALL 911”, I texted Lianne.

On her way home from school pick-up, with her kids strapped in her running van (typical for the life of a doctor Mom!), Lianne popped in to check to see how far along I was. Having had two very precipitous labours, I was somewhat anxious to ensure I had time to make it to the hospital.

After a quick cervical check, Lianne announced that I was 3cm dilated. *Sigh* Only 3cm! With a hug and a reassuring smile, Lianne gently reminded me that maybe this labour would be different than my previous ones and that I should mentally prepare for the long-haul. She urged me into the bath and left me with bubbles cascading over my belly and my book in-hand. The warm water felt delicious and I felt my irritability dissipate. I could do this. I just had to shift my mental focus and stop watching the clock.

Not an hour after feeling my body relax, I suddenly felt something very different. A literal ‘POP’. I dropped my book onto the bathroom floor. Confused, I stood up and stepped gingerly onto the bathmat wondering could my waters have truly broken? A steady stream of clear water soaked my feet confirming this suspicion.

I immediately called Lianne, then texted Blake to call the babysitter and meet us at the hospital. With Alice’s birth, my water had broken and within 20 minutes she had been born so I knew we had to to get hustling! Pulling on my increasingly soaking pants, I hollered for Amy and yelled for Adam to start the car. I then called the maternity floor at the hospital to give them a heads up that we were coming in. Within ten minutes we had thankfully made it to Labour and Delivery. I was so relieved, having also had numerous dreams about Baby C being born in the car!

Within minutes of arriving to the hospital, Amy, Adam, Blake, Megan (who had previously offered herself as a non-clinical labour support for me) and Lianne were all in the room. With two physicians rubbing my back during each contraction, my fears of having an unattended delivery faded. The labour pains continued to come regularly but I was still able to chat and joke between them and was coping well. Surrounded by so many people, their faces all waiting expectantly as if I was going to drop a baby out any second, I remember feeling almost silly that things weren’t moving along faster!

Eventually though, the strength and frequency of the labour pains quickly ramped up. There was an exact moment where Lianne heard in my moans and recognized in my face the absolute remembrance of what the true pain of labour feels like. It’s so incredible what a woman’s body and mind can force her to forget so that she goes onto having more than one baby!

Within an hour and a half or so of arriving to the hospital, the pain had become impossibly intense and the contractions were packed tightly upon each other, leaving little break between to get a grip. There was no more joking and the mood in the room shifted. I felt myself starting to unravel. It was as if I was being forced to stare directly into an intense beam of light without the ability to blink or look away. As each pain finished, I gasped for fleeting moments before the dread of the next contraction began anew. With my eyes kept tightly shut, I had no awareness of who was around me or what was happening beyond the pillow that I was burying my face into.

Soon, my body began to take over and I felt an incredible urge to push. I can only describe this feeling as if you are suddenly the subject of an exorcism, with total loss of voluntary control over your body’s actions. Lianne quickly checked me, but I was only 7cm dilated! The nurses and Lianne urged and pleaded with me not to push which was akin to asking someone not to vomit. “Impossible!”, I screamed in my head, but desperately tried my best to hang on. I remember frantically pulling my friend Megan towards me, crushing her hand in a death grip as I buried my face into her neck. Despite changes in position, using the nitrous oxide mask and focusing on the many encouraging voices surrounding me, I only managed to get through a few more contractions before finally screaming out, “Lianne, I HAVE TO PUSH!”. I felt wild. Totally out of control and DESPERATE. I needed her out of me.

For the first time throughout the labour, I got onto my back in the bed. Then, I began to push. I pushed with everything in me, gripping tightly to Megan and Amy’s hands. With my eyes still tightly shut, I could hear the nurses voices urging me to stay in control. The pain was beyond what I could bear when I recall Heather, one of our fabulous senior nurses telling me to stop pushing. In this exact moment I had two very clear and distinct thoughts. As a physician who delivers babies on the regular, I knew that this meant that Baby C was coming imminently and that Heather was trying to encourage her head to be delivered in a controlled fashion to minimize tearing. I was elated! It was almost over! My second thought, right on the heels of the first was that I didn’t care ONE IOTA if I tore into a thousand pieces. I wanted her out and I wanted her out RIGHT NOW. I completely ignored Heather’s words of wisdom and pushed with all of my strength. And then, finally, it was done.

After two hours of labour and five minutes of pushing, there she was – a wiggling, screaming pink baby held between my feet by Lianne’s loving hands. I opened my eyes in disbelief to witness that brief moment before tightly closing them again. I have no memory of baby Claire’s first moments of life – of Adam and Amy cutting the cord together, of their first greeting, of Amy holding her daughter as they did skin-to-skin together in the nearby reclining chair. So wracked with the relief that the pain was finished, I just kept my eyes closed and my hand tightly in grip with Megan’s as the after pains and adrenaline shook my whole being.

What came next was a bit of a blur. Out of the blue, my placenta stubbornly refused to come. Adam, Amy, baby Claire and Blake were whisked to another Labour and Delivery room while I was sedated to allow Lianne to immediately remove the placenta to minimize my bleeding. Because of the medications, I was essentially snowed for the first two hours after baby Claire was born. Apparently, at one point, Blake, unaware of what had been happening had returned to the room where I was still in a sedated sleep. Megan and Lianne explained to him what had just transpired to which Blake responded, ‘Well, I feel a bit stupid now, because I just ordered pizza for all of us!”

The medications soon wore off though, and I awoke to Blake at my bedside slowly stroking my hair. It was quiet and we were alone. I remember sitting up, then seeing the pizza! Glorious! Within minutes I was chomping away at a veggie slice as if nothing had happened 🙂 After getting cleaned up, we started the celebrations. Shots of fireball, more pizza, hugs, kisses and many congratulations were passed around. I was finally able to meet baby Claire and was astounded that there she was in my arms, as perfect as can be!

Thanks to Lianne’s expert skill, Megan’s incredible labour support, Blake, Adam and Amy’s constant presence and the amazing care from our OB nurses, both baby Claire and I were alive and well. Amy and Adam had been able to be present for the entire labour and for the birth of their baby girl, and had also been able to do immediate skin-to-skin with Claire for the first hours of her life. I couldn’t have been happier at how things had went. What a relief!

And so the beginning of Claire’s life marks the end of my journey as a gestational carrier for Adam and Amy. In one short year of my own life, I was able to help Adam and Amy start their family and they will now and forever be parents. My own two children are everything to me and I cannot imagine life without them. I am incredibly elated to welcome Adam and Amy to parenthood and cannot wait to support them through the next part of their lives with a newborn. Congratulations you two!

Lying in the darkness, Baby Candon rhythmically jolts my gravid belly. Hiccups again! I roll onto my left side, then back and forth, side to side, for the seemingly hundredth time that night. The silent small hours of the night are her preferred time to stretch, roll and learn the movements of her tiny body. I close my eyes and rest my hands upon the knobbly bits pushing towards the outside world. I wonder what she is thinking and what she will look like. Will she have Adam’s eyelashes? Amy’s perfect skin? The dark hours of the night slowly creep by.

With only a few weeks left in this pregnancy, the realization of Baby Candon’s imminent entrance to the other side is becoming more and more of a frank reality. As I wind down my work schedule, I can’t believe that this journey is almost coming to an end.

It seems that not too long ago, we were so abstractly discussing this little life. I remember how excruciating it was waiting for those two weeks between the embryo transfer and the first pregnancy test. After the exhilaration of realizing that this was truly happening, I recall thinking how slowly time was passing. How was I going to possibly survive the entire duration of these 40 weeks if each milestone seemed to be forever away?

I kept thinking, just make it to 12 weeks, when the possibility of losing the pregnancy would stop haunting me. Just pass the 16 week mark, when the genetic testing would be resulted and would (please, please) reassure Amy and Adam that all was well. Just get to 25 weeks when, as a physician, I knew that the chance of her surviving outside the womb would be possible. Reach that the third trimester, when we would be at last be in the final stretch. Just make it past 35 weeks, when I would breathe a sigh of relief knowing that if she decided to be born early, she would be able to make her entrance here in Sioux Lookout rather than at a large, tertiary hospital far away from our home. And finally, just cross the finish-line, where she would make her beautiful entrance into the world.

Now at 35 weeks, I am so thankful that everything has gone smoothly so far. Baby Candon is growing like crazy and was already measuring 5lbs at 32 weeks! She is well on target to far surpass Henry and Alice who were 6lbs and 7lbs upon their arrivals.

Aside from the constant heartburn, my second trimester has flown by without much difficulty. I basically have been living my life as I normally would have with Baby Candon along for the ride. She has heard many stories from patients, been present for numerous deliveries, been in the OR multiple times and has been dragged along for many long ER shifts. Outside of work, I continued my HIT/weight-lifting workouts as usual up until about 30 weeks. Until then, I was getting a few funny looks from other gym-goers as I modified my burpees and push ups trying to make room for my expanding belly. When the jumping and lifting became too difficult, I resorted to prenatal yoga which eventually became me just laying down on my mat to have a rest 🙂

Overall, throughout this journey, the response from family, friends, colleagues and even patients has been overwhelmingly positive. Many people have been utterly surprised and have often remarked that they had heard or seen stories about surrogacy on TV, but had never encountered someone who was actually being a surrogate! This, most of the time, prompted further questions. Did I feel a connection to this baby? (Of course!) Wasn’t I going to be devastated to give the baby to the parents after delivery? (Definitely not!) Did it feel weird to be pregnant with someone else’s baby? (Not really!?) All valid questions, but I also assured them that I certainly didn’t have all the answers and like them, I had never encountered anyone either professionally or personally who had acted as a gestational surrogate. It was uncharted territory for all of us.

The other consistent concern from inquisitive minds was about our own kids, Henry and Alice. Weren’t they going to be confused or upset when I didn’t bring a baby sister home for them from the hospital? This, fortunately has been such a beautiful aspect of this pregnancy. Our children have been completely easy-going and utterly accepting of the situation. To ensure they were never confused, we began talking to Henry and Alice as soon as my belly began to emerge about who was growing inside. They knew who Adam and Amy were from previous visits and we continued the connection by FaceTiming with them so that they would connect Amy and Adam’s face to the story that were were telling them. Amy also sent us an adorable storybook about surrogacy that we read repeatedly at bedtime.

Henry would occasionally comment on my growing bump (‘Mom, you’re a mountain!’ or ‘Mom, I can’t see the book, your belly is in the way!) and Alice would sometimes surprise me with a hug for the baby, but for the most part, they were largely indifferent. What was the big deal? In their eyes, this was all in the realm of normal.

Although for 90% of the time, helping Adam and Amy start their family has been such an exciting, positive experience for our family, growing Baby Candon hasn’t been without a few small challenges. To that end, I wouldn’t be being honest to myself if I wasn’t real in my reflections of this journey. This blog has never been about sugar-coating my life and I have always wanted to have this space for contemplation and a realistic portrayal of my life.

After reaching that third trimester, the last number of weeks have tested my physical and mental strength in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. Pregnancy is no joke, but it was definitely easier when I had been 5 years younger and had been childless or only had one toddler to content with. Now with a VERY active four, and almost three year-old, a full-time, demanding job, I have to be honest and say that I have definitely struggled to keep up.

Suddenly, over the past weeks, I have felt physically weak when trying to lift the kids, do household chores and the day-to-day activities with two kids. Putting my skates on to take Henry out to our backyard rink nearly did me in the other week! As a result, my back has been protesting day and night. Combined with wicked, nausea-inducing heartburn, Baby Candon’s night-time dance parties, overnight calls from the hospital, and Henry’s 6am wake-ups, sleep has been been pretty much futile.

I have to be honest – there have been moments in these past weeks where I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to make it to the end. In those moments, I have felt overwhelmed with my whale-like body, with the unexplained tears that have come way too quickly, spilling from the lack of sleep and the hormonal state of pregnancy, and mostly from my inability to keep focused on what was most important – Amy and Adam and the creation of their beautiful family. In those moments, I have felt alone, feeling guilty about having these negative sentiments – not wanting to complain knowing that Amy would literally give anything, ANYTHING to switch places with me. I knew that in a heartbeat, Amy would gladly take a lifetime of insomnia, heartburn and all the discomforts of pregnancy to carry her little girl herself.

But, in those moments, Blake has rubbed my back, wiped my tears, listened empathetically to my complaints and most importantly, has gently reminded me why we were doing this for Amy and Adam. “Remember Celia how happy you will be making Amy and Adam. Think of all the people you are helping”, he would say over and over.

Keep perspective, I would then repeat over in my mind, grounding myself to the fact that these temporary and minor discomforts and challenges were so minuscule in the grand scheme of not only my own life, but for the rest of Amy and Adam’s lives too.

The true boost of motivation that I needed to see me through these final weeks came recently over New Years. After a demanding seven days and seven nights of continuous obstetrics call over Christmas, Blake, the kids and I traveled to Southern Ontario to visit family and friends in Blake’s hometown of Kingston. In our annual tradition, we spent a lovely New Year’s Eve at Amy and Adam’s home. Standing in their beautiful nursery, seeing how excited Amy and Adam were and imagining their little girl sleeping in her perfect crib was incredibly powerful for me. It struck me profoundly that only one year to the day, the idea of carrying Adam and Amy’s baby had entered our minds and then here we were, with Baby Candon wiggling around in my belly while I stood in her soon-to-be nursery.

Days later, we were fortunate enough to attend Amy and Adam’s baby shower. It was a lovely celebration attended by eighty-some friends and family. As someone who has never enjoyed being in the spotlight, I had tried to be as inconspicuous as I could which wasn’t that successful given my very pregnant belly. As a result, many of Amy and Adam’s friends and family members made a point of introducing themselves to Blake and I and to thank us. I remember feeling so shy and awkward at the attention, but was extremely touched at the gratitude that everyone expressed. It was amazing to see how much this little life was loved by so many already!

Now back at home with only a few short weeks to go, I am truly getting so excited for this little one’s arrival. I am hoping her delivery will be something along the lines of how Alice describes it:

Me (pointing to my belly): Who’s in here?

Alice: Adam and Amy’s baby!

Me: What’s going to happen soon?

Alice: She’ll grow and grow until she goes ‘POP’, then she’ll say ‘Wahhhhhhh!’ (this is her favourite part of the story, and always tells it with a giant smile on her face).

Me: Then what will happen?

Alice: Baby will go to Adam and Amy’s house and then… the moon with happiness (aka they will be over the moon with happiness)!

I can only hope things will go as smoothly 🙂

We can’t wait to meet you Baby Candon!

I hurry down the empty halls, tiny hooks below carefully-placed name plates plastered with sparkling stickers. It’s parent-teacher interview night and I’m the last parent to speak with Henry’s kindergarten teacher. As I await my turn, I lean against the wall outside the classroom door and close my eyes.

It had been a long day so far. A little life, only five days short had started to give up on breathing that afternoon. At first, very subtly. Periodically taking shallow breaths, then pausing with the effort. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven… Breathe little one, breathe. Monitors beeping, IVs running, the nurse and I intently working over her body in our cramped nursery. The pauses grew and lengthened. Sepsis? A primary cardiac etiology? One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine…. ‘Sats are 78%’, calls out the nurse. Five phone calls to five different specialists in Thunder Bay, Winnipeg and London. ‘How many hours until the neonatal transport team arrives?’ I ask, ‘Six?!’, my brow furrows. We have no neonatologist, no respiratory therapist, no ventilator. The closest hospital with a NICU is 5-6 hours away. Breathe little one, breathe. Perfect dark eyelashes, the cutest, roundest belly. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten… We move to take over her breathing, the effort too much for her sick body. 

‘Celia? Come on in’. I open my eyes and perch on an impossibly small chair, my belly protruding against the toddler-sized table. ‘How was your day?’, the teacher asks. I smile, ‘Good, thanks’. How do you explain how it feels to have breathe for a neonate, her lungs inflating and deflating by your hands?

She goes on to describe Henry’s first two months in class – his independence, his ability to communicate his needs. She then tells me about his acts empathy. How he had rushed to help a classmate in the playground, turtled by his impossibly large snowsuit. How, in passing, he had causally asked his teacher, ‘Mme, how is your day?’. No one had ever asked her how she was feeling before. Another time, when a classmate had been crying after his mother had dropped him off on her way to work, Henry had comforted him, saying, ‘It’s ok, sometimes Moms have to go to work and can’t take care of us’.  I squeeze my eyes shut, barely keeping it together. How proud I was of him. My baby, now four years old, an independent kindergartener with a heart full of love. 

How did the time fly by so fast? One day, in awe of the tinniest fingernails that you’ve ever seen, the next watching your ‘school-ager’ hop on the bus with confidence and autonomy. 

The truest cliche and the only for sure thing in parenting; the time slipping by. How perilous and fleeting the grasp, as is races past you, unmercifully, in the blink of an eye. 

The ocean sprawls out to infinity, palm trees swaying, white caps rolling. I sit on the king-sized bed, laptop in front of me. It’s quiet. In the adjoining room, my two babies sleep soundly on separate beds, their bodies framed with pillows packed tightly around them. Their ‘nests’. Adam and Amy’s baby kicks sharply under my right ribs – her favourite place to stretch out. I mindlessly rub the spot reflexively. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the space to sit in silence. So busy are the days. Mornings rushed, cramming the to-do list that was created in my 3am sleepless brain into the space of an hour. Get up, shower, get the kids up, hustle them through breakfast, wrangle them into clothes, get Henry out the door with Blake to the bus on time, ready myself for work, get Alice and I out the door, drop Alice off at daycare, rush to work. The pattern repeats every morning. A race fuelled by pleas, bribes and yelling. I hate it. 

At work, the prenatal clinic is always packed. Women wait for hours, lining up for their ultrasounds, blood work and nursing assessments. By the time they see me, 4 hours later, I bear the brunt of their anger. I nod empathetically – they’re tired and hungry, their toddler needs a nap. I too haven’t eaten nor had a moment alone in the bathroom since I started the day. But I never say that. I do my best to optimize their obstetrical risks – IV drug use, cocaine, a growth-restricted baby, a congenital anomaly. I hear their stories of violence, not having enough food to go around, the grief of missing their three year-old’s birthday while ‘confined’ in Sioux Lookout, waiting and waiting for their baby to be born. ‘Confined’ – an awful word, but so readily captures the sentiment that women often feel. Away from their babies at home. My heart breaks, but there isn’t time right now for that. That’s for 3am. I consult our social worker and cram a handful of almonds into my mouth between dictations and calling the maternal fetal medicine specialist in Winnipeg. ‘I’m just a family doc’, I say. 

By 3pm, I finally get a bathroom break. I notice that my make-up is smudged. I wonder how long long it’s been like that. I look tired. Lines etched so deeply into my face. 

Our clinic staff works until the very last patient is seen. We aren’t like other medical clinics – if someone doesn’t show up to their appointment, we work diligently until we track them down and bring them in. Another woman is scheduled at 10am but straggles in at 4pm. We see her as thoroughly as we would have if she had presented on time. With addictions, a heavy social burden and many medical issues to work through – we care deeply about our patients and their unborn babes, not why they didn’t show up on time. It makes for long days though. 

At 4pm, I hustle to the parking lot, hoping to be able to pick up Alice. My cell phone rings as I climb into our beat up Honda Element. Fetal distress on the monitor, another woman is now 8cm. I call Blake – ‘Can you pick up Alice?’, and head back inside through ER doors. 

By 6pm, I’m home. The kids are in their jammies, their hair wet from the bath. At the door, they are both talking to me at once as Ada butts her nose in for attention. I dump my bag, shed my jacket to the bench and am instantly reading their bedtime stories, savouring the precious 45 minutes before bed. Despite my growling tummy, dinner will wait until their last goodnight song has been sang. I pray for my phone to remain silent. As in the morning, the time spent with their chubby cheeks and bright eyes is condensed into an hour that flashes by. 

Am I doing this right? This parenting doctor thing? I feel impossibly stretched and the tears flow too easily. My temper gets shorter with each night of broken sleep. Do they know that I love them so much it hurts even when I drop pieces of Lego on to the floor and run out the door without explanation? Or when their small pleas of, ‘Mom, do you want to come play with me please?’ need to go ignored. I can only hope. In the same way that I cling to the fact that I have perhaps made one small positive change in seemingly endless stream of sadness at work. 

Then, finally, the ocean. The palm trees. The music that wafts up to our balcony. Unhurried days. Uninterrupted conversations with Blake. Eight continuous hours of sleep. Snowsuits traded for bathing suits. Recharge, before I’m drained again. 

If you could help a friend in a way that many couldn’t, would you?

New Year’s Eve 2017:

Blake and I are cozied up on the couch, champagne in-hand watching Jenny McCarthy’s highly botoxed face talking excitedly into her microphone. Instead of dressing up and heading out on the town to ring in the New Year, Blake and I are happily spending a quiet night in with our dear friends Amy and Adam in Blake’s hometown of Kingston. With Blake’s parents babysitting, we are kid-free to relax and enjoy an intimate evening. Living in Sioux Lookout means we often don’t see our close friends as much as we would like, but the mark of true friendships comes when, after a year apart, you fall easily back into conversation like no time has ever passed.

As Mariah Carey belts out her performance awaiting the ball to drop, the four of us chat about our year, exchange news about mutual friends and share our year’s ups and downs. We had previously known that Amy and Adam had been unfortunately dealing with long journey of infertility, but that evening, through tears and a few laughs, Amy had shared devastating news that they had found out just that day that their fourth IVF cycle had been unsuccessful. Sadly, Amy told us that they would no longer be doing any further embryo transfers and were now likely going to need to search for a gestational carrier.

Blake, at this point, had been a few glasses of champagne-deep into the evening and had immediately said, “Well Celia can do that! She pops babies out no problem!”.

Now, if you know Blake even a little bit, you know that his love language is certainly not physical affection nor words of affirmation. If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of a hug from Blake, count yourself lucky. They don’t come by often, but if you need your fridge fixed, your dock taken out at the end of the season or a tire changed, Blake will be there without hesitation. He will be there, come hell or high water to lend a hand to any friend in need. He shows his love completely in terms of acts of service, so this was a very natural response!

We all had laughed at Blake’s suggestion and had moved on in conversation as the countdown reached midnight. After many hugs at the end of the evening, we had gone separate ways with promises to keep our annual New Year’s Eve visit an ongoing tradition.

Weeks later though, back at home in Sioux Lookout, I couldn’t shake the niggling thought hanging in the back of my mind about Blake’s idea. Why couldn’t I be a gestational carrier for Adam and Amy? The thought of carrying someone else’s baby had literally never entered my mind before this moment. As someone who delivers babies into the world for a living, it wasn’t that I was naive to what pregnancy and birth entailed. But Blake was right. I had had two previously very uncomplicated pregnancies and deliveries. We were absolutely positive that we were finished our family, but I was still young and healthy with a career that allowed us work and financial flexibility. I simply could not come up with a reason why I shouldn’t offer myself to Amy and Adam as a gestational carrier.

After much consideration and discussion with Blake, I had written a letter to Amy and Adam offering to carry their baby. Their response was overwhelmingly positive and soon the four of us were embarking down a road that would change our friendship and our lives forever.

Fast forward through months of conference calls with Amy and Adam, a consultation with a fertility specialist, pages of legal documentation, a psychologist’s virtual assessment of Blake and I, weeks of medications, labs and ultrasounds and I am sitting in an oversized blue paper gown, blue booties and a blue surgical cap in a fertility clinic in Toronto. My bladder is bursting as we wait for our turn to finally undergo embryo transfer. Beside me, Amy and Adam clutch a photo of a five-cell embryo, the ball of cells soon to be housed in my prepped uterus. Oddly enough, although the significance of this event isn’t lost on us, the atmosphere is relaxed as we joke to pass the time. Fifteen minutes later, the procedure is done and I am now the recipient of Adam and Amy’s genetic material and (fingers and toes crossed), their ‘maybe baby’.

Those of you who have undergone IVF, maybe once, or even multiple times know intimately the energy, time and commitment necessary to ensure the highest probability of success that a tiny ball of microscopic cells will land on a cushy uterine lining and will implant successfully. Despite being a physician, I had no real concept of what this entailed. As someone who probably took a total of ten prenatal vitamins over two pregnancies and basically did the bare minimum in terms of prenatal visits in my own prenatal clinic while pregnant with Henry and Alice, I was now religiously taking multiple medications a day including progesterone suppositories and nightly progesterone injections. In my mind, I felt that the success of this pregnancy was now my part-time job and I was determined to give it my all.

After fourteen excruciating days of waiting, the day of truth came in the form of one, followed by four (unnecessary) subsequent positive pregnancy tests.  Adam and Amy were elated, I was in disbelief and Blake, who had been 100% confident that the pregnancy would be successful all along, was smug. What a moment of joy! This crazy journey was truly happening.

Now at twenty-four weeks along, that tiny ball of cells that had entered my life back in the spring has blossomed into a quickly growing baby girl, soon to make her entrance in February 2019. My medical mind mostly keeps the pregnancy in a very pragmatic, procedural-like box. But often during those sleepless nights when she’s tap-dancing in my belly, I cannot stop myself from letting my mind wander. I wonder who she will be, this little one, and what her life story will be like. Mostly, I think of Amy and Adam and how the physical birth of this tiny life will be the amazing beginning of their long-awaited family’s journey. It’s beautiful and elating to think about. How incredibly fortunate am I that I have been given this gift to forever have a place in their family’s story.

Of course, pregnancy is never really a picture of glowing skin and thick, glossy hair. There is no sugar-coating the months of nightly injections, the nausea, the heartburn, the insomnia and the constipation that goes along with housing a growing fetus. It’s just that these issues don’t sell magazines 🙂

For me, the real challenge has been letting go of the body that I had been previously been working so fiercely to reclaim. You may recall in an older blog post, I had recently fought to shift my commitment to dedicate time for ME and to get back into shape after having had Henry and Alice. I still fight for my three workouts a week, but my burpees are much slower these days as my belly grows and the pounds creep up. I know that in the grand scheme of my life, this is such a temporary, selfish and minor set-back. I remind myself often that this is simply one short year in my life that will change Amy and Adam’s lives forever.

So, finally, a huge congratulations to Adam and Amy – we can’t wait to meet your little one and a giant thank you to so many of you who have helped us on this journey so far. What a crazy ride life is!

It’s just after 7am on a Saturday morning and I’m standing in my scrubs outside the OR doors. My surgical mask hangs lazily from my neck as I press the doppler probe against my patient’s protruding gravid belly, anxious to capture the heartbeat of the little life inside. The scrub nurses are hastily opening the c-section equipment behind the OR doors and the anesthetist is quizzing my patient about her health in rapid fire. Against this background noise, I pick up a staticky fetal heart. 130bpm. My shoulders drop in relief.

I have been up most of the night with a labouring young primip who had been seemingly progressing well until suddenly, she had begun to bleed. Then the fetal heartbeat had begun to waver in the nausea-inducing way that only those who provide obstetrical care can understand. At only 6cm, we didn’t have time to wait for her babe to enter the world in the usual fashion. Her placenta’s hold to its attachment against the uterine wall was quickly failing and with it, her baby’s lifeline was being ripped away. A placental abruption and an obstetrical emergency.

As the anesthetist, OR nurses and c-section doctor were called in, we had prepped the patient and moved her quickly to the OR hallway. In our small hospital, everyone is called in from home creating a 20-30min nail-biting delay. This is the reality of rural medicine.

I had slept little, but the adrenaline of the situation was like a shot of espresso. My body felt tense as I focused on that tiny heartbeat while awaiting to assist our surgeon. Suddenly,  my phone in my scrub pocket began to ring. I jumped, startled at the sound. Taking care to not move the doppler, I continued to auscultate while glancing at the phone. It was a number that I did not recognize.

“Hello, Dr. Sprague speaking”, I answered curtly.

“Hi, this is Brendan Sitar.”

“Yes?”, I responded impatiently. The name bore no recognition in my brain and I was quite sure that it didn’t belong to any of the locums manning the ER perhaps looking for an Obstetrical consult. I was anxious to end the conversation.

“I’m at the Forest Inn and I think I have your son here in his pyjamas.”

In a split second, my heart leapt into my throat. My mind flip floped from MD to Momma mode. Who was this man and why was my three-year old Henry almost three kilometres away from home, alone, in his pyjamas at 7am? And where was Blake? I motioned to the resident beside me to take over auscultating the fetal heartbeat and moved hastily a few steps down the hall while firing questions into the phone.

As it turned out, Brendan was the husband of a previous prenatal patient and a friend of a neighbour. He had been driving into town when he spotted a little guy, alone, in his jammies biking with determination along the road. Thinking that something was not quite right, Brendan had pulled a U-turn and stopped Henry. After a quick chat, Brendan had recognized Henry from our neighbourhood and had acquired my cell number from our neighbour.

“Would you like me to stay here until you come to get him?” Brendan finally asked.

My heart sank. I absolutely could not leave the hospital. There was nothing more that I wanted to do but to race to Henry’s side and to bring him home safely, but I had a job to do; a little life and a terrified teen Mom were depending on me to be there to do it.

I begged Brendan to just throw Henry and his bike into his truck and take him home. Henry would survive the ride home without a car seat. What could I do? Thankfully, Brendan agreed. Next, I blasted Blake’s cellphone with twenty unanswered calls. Where the hell was Blake? What if Brendan brought Henry home to an empty house?

I peeked through the OR windows. The anesthetist had swiftly placed the spinal and it was now time for me to scrub. I had no more time to try to contact Blake. In panic-mode, I called Meghan, my brother’s partner. No answer. Near tears, I then tried my brother’s cell. Thankfully, he answered, his voice laden with sleep. I blurted out the situation and begged him to get out of bed at once and race to our house to meet Brendan. He agreed and I hung up the phone, scrubbed and entered the OR, my mind flip flopping back again to the job in front of me. I could only hope that Henry would make it home safely. It was literally now out of my hands.

As a Mom to two young children, I often wonder if my struggles in balancing a full-time job with the constant desire to be home differ from any other working parent out there. Does it really matter that I am a physician? Don’t all working parents have the same challenges that I do? Don’t they all feel the same guilt that plagues me daily? Or perhaps do they wonder, as I do, how they can ever get this all right?

For so long, I truly believed that being a doctor Mama made me no different than a teacher Mama, or an accountant Dad. We were all in the same boat. Struggling in all the same ways, trying to just do the best that we could to survive.

Perhaps this is the truth, but after that heart-pumping June morning, I have come to different realization. While we all have our challenges, there are few parents out there that simply cannot  be there for their kids 100% of the time, no matter how desperately they want to.

Working in remote Sioux Lookout over the past four years providing maternity care to Indigenous families has been a dream come true for me. Despite the constant challenges of working in stressful situations well above my comfort level, I truly feel privileged to do what I do. Sure, there are many days that I wish I could be home snuggling quietly on the couch with Alice or playing Playmobil with Henry, but when push comes to shove, I am so grateful to be able to work as a full-scope rural family physician – to serve those who need it most, to be challenged intellectually in ways that I never thought possible, to share in the joy and also the heartbreak of peoples’ lives, to be fulfilled.

In the end, all worked out just fine. My colleague and I delivered a screaming baby boy that morning and two lives were saved. Henry also made it home safely to a bewildered Blake who had been home all along, asleep with the ringer off and to Uncle Johnny and Auntie who both tried very hard to look stern when Henry told them the story of his adventure.

Later that morning , I too heard the whole story of how Henry had so desperately wanted to play with his friend’s crane truck that he had slipped from the house in the early hours, buckled up his helmet and biked on his own along our road, across a highway, and down a huge hill hugging Pelican Lake. He was only 500m away from his destination when Brendan had stopped him, but three kilometres away from his bedroom. Time to invest in some extra security measures for our doors!

Since that morning, I thank my lucky stars that we live in a small town, that we have friends and neighbours who look out for us and for family members who lend a hand at all hours at the drop of a hat. These are the reasons why a physician Momma can survive, by leaning on those around her. I know that our kids will always be loved and supported by Blake, our extended family, our circle of friends and their community. Regardless of where our family ends up, I hope it will always continue to be that way.

Here are some pictures of our blissful time in paradise this summer!

When you have a two and a three year-old, a full-time job and a house to manage, things can get, well, a little overwhelming.

Ahhhh, now that summer is here, my annual fantasies of glorious family camping adventures are consuming me in a big way. Beauty sunsets while sipping red wine from a travel mug, feeling the warmth of granite on your back as you stretch out over a smooth rock after a dip, eating freshly caught fish cooked over the fire… These serene moments are what I live for in the summer. A way to fill the soul until it brims over.

In reality, with a two and a three year-old, ‘camping’ takes on a whole new meaning. As you may recall, this time last year, I was in the throws of desperation to successfully get the family to sleep under the stars when I made the realization that camping with kids is just, well, not the sunsets and leisurely moments that I had envisioned!  Remember this post!?

Truth be told, I was mostly fantasizing about this:

When in reality, it was this:

Last summer, 10pm. everyone crying, including me. Camping adventure was later abandoned an hour later!

But, alas, I am stubborn! I wouldn’t let the crying disaster of last year’s attempt hold me back. So, when our Sioux Lookout Families’ annual camping weekend rolled around mid-June, I committed. We would try again, no matter how many tears were shed.

This time, however, Blake and Henry would be in Toronto for their annual Blue Jays adventure for Father’s Day. So, I packed the cooler full, stuffed the gear into the car, jammed the Chariot into the rocket-box and set off to Ojibway Park, just Alice and I.

The weather cooperated and we had a gorgeous weekend of sun and mostly clear skies. Alice was a trooper and despite the heat and the bugs, she barely fussed. She loved bombing around the campground on her strider bike, running in and out of the water at the beach and hamming it up around the fire with her friends.

When nighttime rolled around, routine went out the window. By the time the high sun allowed the darkness to fall, it was after 11pm and Alice’s cubby cheek didn’t hit her fleece until 11:30pm!

I awoke at 5am to the crows calling and to Alice’s face inches from mine. “Good morning!”, she exclaimed. I felt like my eyelids were stuck to my eyeballs, but truly, how could I be upset?!

A few hours later, after the kids had been fed, I was finally sipping my much needed,  freshly brewed coffee from Alice’s snack container (where the heck did my mug get to?!). We lazily watched the kids rolling around getting dirty and having the time of their lives.

“Why do we even bother camping with our kids?”, I had mused to Stu, a fellow parent and friend. It was a colossal effort and a massive amount of work to coordinate, keep the kids from being eaten alive by bugs and from being fried by the sun.

My mind had wandered to my own childhood.  Every summer, our parents had packed us three kids up into our red canoe and had gone on a backcountry paddling trip. Sometimes with other families, sometimes just us. Of course there were times when I remember being knee-deep in mud, sobbing on a portage, being ravaged by bugs, but the vast majority of my memories were of bliss.

Piling mud on a rock to create a slide into the water, fishing off the shore, playing Risk while stretched out on our sleeping mats, signing while ‘paddling’ (aka mostly dragging our hands/arms/paddles in the water) in the canoe, running naked in and out of the water with that indescribably fresh feeling tingling on our skin… the list goes on.

Never before had I truly considered how much of a massive undertaking those trips were for my parents. The food prep, the planning, the organization of gear, etc. As a parent now, I can now empathize that despite my rose-coloured memories of our days in the backcountry, those family trips were likely not easy with three kids!

So thank you Mom & Dad for all of the times you wanted to pull your hair out as we tramped with dirty feet into the tent, or took a pee in a patch of Poison Ivy, or demanded that our bellies needed twenty more pancakes.

As for me, memories of a childhood, rich with outdoor experiences is motivation enough to make the effort for our family this summer and for every single summer that stretches before us. Because for us adults, when the moment is seemingly ordinary, it could be the most extraordinary memory in the making!