Violet's Birth Story, Written by Erik Virtanen (Father)

Well, my experience of the night began exactly how it looks in the movies. After I got home from ball hockey, Tasha said it might be time to go to the hospital. I could tell it definitely was time. I’m not sure why. But it clicked in my brain that I needed to get this woman to the hospital ASAP. 

I ran around the house putting together the stuff on my list of things to do at hospital time (like what to put in my bag, things we needed to remember like phone chargers, etc). That list was my lifeline. If it wasn’t on the list, it did not exist. 

I started running things out to the car as fast as I could. Tasha could barely walk, so she slowly stepped there. And then I drove - it was the most stressful drive of my life. Tasha was having crazy pain and yelling, I was trying to speed through all the yellow lights. We put on some music - there was Nick Cave piano music - and it calmed things down slightly. 

I pulled into the hospital and told the security guy I needed to bring my wife upstairs. He probably saw the determination in my eyes because he was just like, “Yeah, yeah, man, leave your car, do it.” 

So we got Tasha to the birthing area and things sort of slowed down. The nurses were calm and great, so I went and parked the car and got the bags while they got Tasha settled. Luckily I found an awesome parking spot a few blocks away. I ran back and Tasha was with our nurse in the room.

I won’t go into details about the night, but it was really great. One of my favourite things about the entire pregnancy/birth experience was spending this night with Tasha. The nice blonde nurse showed me how to massage her back properly, and I did that when she had a contraction. Unless the nurse was there, then she was take over to give my hands a break. But the whole night was basically just me and Tasha together, helping her get through it together. We hired a doula, but we didn’t call her until the last moments because we were enjoying it just as the two of us. Tasha’s strength really impressed me. She was like a superwoman. 

I also felt like I became the blood-master that night. I cleaned up blood and random liquids like a pro. 

There was also an intern nurse who came in sometimes throughout the night, and asked us questions on her practice sheet to train how to interact with patients. She has a long way to go before anyone should be trusted with her. She seemed extremely uncomfortable with all the pregnancy stuff. At one point her main job was to close the blinds on the window. She struggled with that. I offered the advice that she needed to pull the string at an angle and then the blinds would fall, but she didn’t listen and it was entertaining to watch. When she finally got the blinds down, I could see that she felt as though she had achieved something good.

Eventually, the doctor broke the rest of Tasha’s water to help move things along and her labour pains got much more severe after that. There was one point where Tasha was sitting on the side of the bed in a trance like state, asking God to help her. 

It was around then that we called the doula. Having her coming was an added comfort as Tasha’s pain intensified. The sun started coming up and more nurses soon came in. It kind of became this whole ‘sisterly’ experience among Tasha, the doula, and all the female nurses and female doctor. Like they all knew what they were doing and I just kind of watched and stood by Tasha, holding her hand and such. 

She started pushing and soon I saw a tuft of hair sticking out of her vagina. It was really bizarre to see. The tuft stayed there poking out for a long time as she pushed, and then soon out came the top of the head. It was weirdly shaped like the pointy top of a triangle. It just stayed there poking out too for a while - this triangular head point with a tuft of hair on it. After a little while, Tasha pushed the whole baby out - the rest of her came out basically in one quick moment. She had greyish skin. Now the memories become blurred. I cut the cord after waiting a minute or so and then I stood with Tasha as we looked at our new human in her arms. It was strange because the baby didn’t really feel like it was what was in her stomach. She didn’t look like how we imagined and there was something a little surreal to it all. 

We were put in a hospital room and it felt like we were instantly parents and had to start caring for this human right now! We were given tons of information on caring for a newborn, some conflicting, by various nurses. I tried to take a lot of pictures. It kind of became my thing for the first few hours. I was picture man. 

I more focused on tasks and doing things for Tasha, rather than say gazing lovingly into the baby’s eyes for hours on end. I did get a few minutes here and there to stare at her and think how crazy this all was and how cute she was. Though she still felt a bit “other” to me. Like I didn’t really know her yet. But I had a duty to care for her. 

So much happened over those days in the hospital, a whirlwind, it’s hard to write it all. I remember it took us a few hours to definitely say the baby’s name was Violet. Did she look a Violet or not? We felt yes. We had Violet in this plastic crib thing that was angled up. I had to wheel her into the nursery at one point. I saw a few other newborn babies there. They looked weird - like one baby had the face of an East Indian man, and there were twins who looked slightly creepy - but Violet looked really cute. 

Tasha and I were quite nervous, we didn’t know what we had gotten ourselves into. Tasha started the whole breastfeeding process, which was stressful. I went out and got us meals, mostly from Tim Hortons and Subway, and texted pictures to family. We changed to a different room after a while. It was a double room but there was no one else in it. The nights were really weird for “sleeping” (note the quotes). Tasha didn’t sleep for a few days I think. It was now us and Violet. Mostly at first it was really Tasha and Violet, and Erik was there to do random things like turn lights off or get water or spoon food into Tasha’s mouth. We were moved to a nice private room after that. Tasha was beginning to get the hang of breastfeeding and we were soon deemed ready to leave. I got all the registration papers from the downstairs office and we packed up and drove off. 

This was now the most stressful drive of my life. I wanted to get home quick. But of course Mont Royal was jammed with traffic all up the mountain for some reason. So we drove halfway and then I turned around and drove back a different route. So it was kind of like making the most stressful drive of my life twice. 

Eventually we got home safe and Grace was there to greet us. We realized then that we were now left to our own devices to nervously embark on this new adventure with Violet.