Isla Wyllie's Birth Story

On Thursday, January 19th Isla Kalelle Wyllie made her grand entrance at 10:44pm weighing 7lbs 4oz. This came as a surprise to everyone as she was 2 weeks early and so I just kept thinking the contractions would stop - which led us to a home birth!

It began the previous night when I didn’t sleep well and had some contractions. They continued off and on throughout Thursday – but nothing strong or regular. The same thing happened for 2 weeks with Ewan, so I was not expecting anything to actually come of them. I even saw the midwife that morning and she agreed that they probably did not mean much. Then by 3pm I called my mom because my back was killing me and Ewan was being a handful and Alan was going to be working late that evening building a treadmill with a friend in our basement– so she came by and amused Ewan, made dinner and gave him his bath. 


By dinner time the contractions were still there but again not painful at all. By 7pm they were becoming more painful – I could still talk but had to stop walking. So I called our doula and the midwife just to let them know that I might be in early labour – the midwife said she would come by to assess me and if it was early give me gravol to try and get a good night sleep. Apparently a snow storm also started around this time which delayed the midwives and doula's arrival. By 8:30pm Alan and I began to think that the baby may in fact be coming - I was in the bath tub and in full on labour. The midwives and doula arrived around 9pm and did my assessment and to everyone's surprise I was at 9cm!!! The options were then to call an ambulance because of weather or continue to labor at home  as I was doing well and so was baby. At that point there wasn’t a chance I was going to be strapped to a bed in an ambulance while in active labour. So, we continued labouring at home and at 10:44 Isla was born!!! 

It was a fantastic experience and I am so happy that it turned out the way that it did. It was wonderful having my mom and Ewan in the house (Ewan unfortunately fell asleep 15 minutes before Isla was born), but the two of them kept busy with Mickey Mouse and baking a birthday cake for Isla.


During the pregnancy I had read a lot of books on home births and natural births as I had wanted to create a very different experience than what I had with Ewan - an emergency c-section. However, Alan and I agreed that a hospital birth would be the safer option in the event that emergency circumstances presented themselves again. But once we heard that I was already 9 cm's - past the point where things went wrong with Ewan, and I was still feeling strong and confident in my body's ability to know what to do - the decision to stay home was easy. It also helped that I was very comfortable with my midwife and trusted her opinion and that my doula was a good friend who was experienced, calm and confident in my ability to give birth to this baby. It really was a life changing experience and I am proud of myself for trusting my instincts and of how Alan and I really worked together through the whole labour - except early on when he thought building a treadmill was the priority! I could not have asked for a more supportive team or a better birth experience. 

As for the past 11 days, we have been enjoying lots of quiet family time as well as visits from family and friends. Ewan is doing quite well with Isla - he adores her, and as long as I am within view he is fine keeping busy with dad, grandpa or grandma. Isla is also sleeping quite well so far, so I am feeling very well rested at this point. 


We are so excited to welcome Isla into our family!


Also, for anyone that is curious, Isla is pronounced like Island (but without the 'nd') and Kalelle was chosen as a middle name by Alan because it is Superman's Kryptonian name and he felt her middle name had to be able to compete with Ewan's (Xavier (for superhero Professor X) Braveheart (from scottish movie)).

Maternity Photo Shoot

Last weekend I had my maternity photo shoot, along with some family pictures, with Elizabeth Fulton Photography. Elizabeth had done our family pictures at our home this past summer and she did wonderful work and was wonderful to work with - especially with a non-cooperative 2 year old. I had really wanted family pictures of just the 3 of us before I began to show that I was pregnant - and the pictures that we have are beautiful. Afterwards, I had decided that I would also like some maternity photos since I really did not have any but a handful from when I was pregnant with Ewan. And last weekends session gave us better pictures than I could have even hoped for. Here is a sample of some of the pictures -

Thank you Elizabeth we are so happy with the memories we have of this special time in our lives. And you have also sparked a love of photography in Ewan who has had us posing and saying 'picture' all week long (and no longer with the plastic camera, but with my point and shoot camera!)

Taking my leave now

This morning is the first morning that I am off while the rest of the regular Before School and Nursery School programming is up and running (I did have a few days off over the winter break - but I usually take some time off during camp times, so it doesn't really count). It has defintely been wonderful taking my time with Ewan getting ready, eating our breakfast sitting together nice and slow, and letting Ewan stay in his pj's while he plays with his trains. And I am sitting in the kitchen, sipping my decaf coffee and browsing the internet. I also cannot help looking at the clock and wondering every so often how snack time is going at this moment, or are the kids getting their snowsuits on for the bus? I know everyone will not only survive without me, but probably thrive given the freedom to use their own creativity (I think I can sometimes be a little controlling!) I guess it will take a little time gettting used to - or the arrival of baby to keep me busy - which I am now 37 weeks, so can be anytime!

After initially planning on running the play classes right through January, I am finally giving in / giving up? and taking a few weeks off early. Partially due to it now becoming difficult to be on my feet moving for 3 hours straight and also painful to even walk with this baby sitting so low as well as sheer exhaustion and wanting to spend just a little more time with Ewan - just him and I before the craziness sets in. So I have made my decision to finish the play classes this week (tomorrow and Saturday) and then to hand the classes over to Megan and Chrissy - who I am confident will do a wonderful job and be a lot more capable of moving around and being active than I am at this point.

So it is with sadness and excitement that I am saying my goodbyes to everyone currently in the programs for the winter. I very much look forward to coming in and visiting as well as being
back in the Spring time!

But don't worry I will keep on blogging, updating facebook (on both A Gym Tale news and baby news) as well as myself or Alan responding to emails.

The preparations have begun..

The holiday break has been wonderful. I have been into A Gym Tale a few times, but I have also had so much time to relax and spend with Ewan, it really has been great. We had several pyjama days, play dates with friends, a trip to the children's museum (which was a fantastic morning out) and then wrapped it all up this weekend with organizing and cleaning the house - and finally putting the Christmas decorations away!

I have taken today to go on an organizing and laundry spree of all things related to baby #2. I have now more or less put everything through the laundry that can be put through. I have also actually finished all of the folding and put everything away in drawers, including all items of clothing, bedding, my slings and wraps and all face cloths, blankets, diapers etc. Change table is ready and car seat is out - still needs to be installed, but I think I am actually all prepared.

It is funny some days I can barely get off the couch and other days I can be on my feet all day and get so much accomplished. So baby #2, you are considered full term this week and we are ready for your arrival any time!

Happy New Year!

I would like to wish everyone a very happy New Year and I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday spending time with family and friends. I also want to thank all of the families of the Nursery School students who came to the Holiday concert. The children had worked so hard to prepare and they all did such a great job! And it was amazing to see how many people came out to see them perform. I also want to thank everyone for all of the generous and thoughtful teacher gifts.

Over the holiday I have had a wonderful time catching up with family members and friends that I had not seen in some time. Ewan was very excited about all of the parties and seeing so much family, however, he was not excited about opening gifts - something I had not anticapated. He opened one gift on Christmas Eve and then refused to open any more! He was very grateful and played with everything once we opened it - he was just not interested in opening the gifts himself.

It has been some time since I posted and to be honest since the craziness of Christmas has been over, I am happy to admit that I really have not done anything! And it has been amazing! Ewan has unfortunately been sick with a bad cold, but it has given us another reason to have 3 pyjama days in a row.

Now I have made a few trips into A Gym Tale and it has also been great to see some familiar faces in the camp program and visiting for Drop-In Play. Alan, Ewan and I also spent our New Year's Eve at A Gym Tale doing our annual Sleepover event and are happy to say that it was another successful night and we saw lots of 'old' friends as well as many new faces this year. Ewan could not actually believe that he was sleeping at A Gym Tale and loved getting up in the morning and going directly to play on the indoor playground! As for me, sleeping at A Gym Tale while 35 weeks pregnant was not so comfortable and the yellow crash mat was not as supportive as I remembered it to be! But I have since recovered and I still have a few more days before back to work.

So again Happy New Year and I hope everyone enjoys the remainder of the Holiday Break!