Remembering Mason

I have always been obsessed with babies and children. Not going to lie, but I am quite good…sorry… amazing with kids. They love me and what’s best is they totes GET me. They get my weird voices and crazy faces. My hideous laugh, my wacky ideas. I can be ME with them and not have to feel odd. Give me a baby and most likely you will never get them back. I fricken loveeeeeeee them. I would secretly go into nurseries and pinch my friends babies when they were sleeping just so they could wake up which would allow me to hug and hold them. AND THAT BABY SMELL…..MY GOD. Someone bottle that shit up and sell it because you would make trillions…especially from me.

So then I became pregnant.

Holey moley….did I not expect that. My husband (whom I call Saunders) and I had just gotten back from our honeymoon travelling around Europe for 5 weeks back in August 2016. I decided to come off the pill during this time as I had been on it for nearly 10 years. I wanted to give my body a good cleanse from it and since I had been taking it for so long, everyone had told me that it would take a few months to be rid of it in my system and I surely wouldn’t fall pregnant any time soon. Plus my best friend was having her wedding in March 2017 and I was blessed to be one of her bridesmaids. I didn’t want to be “the pregnant” bridesmaid and ruin all her photos also. So then came September.

Something wasn’t right. I didn’t feel right. So one night I decided to just have a bit of fun and pulled out one of the 123973974893434038403 pregnancy tests I had ordered in bulk from Ebay (because the ones in the supermarket and chemist cost a mortgage just for one and aint nobody got time for that). When I say “fun” I mean…I used to test myself knowing I wasn’t pregnant since I had 40,000 pregnancy tests at home and liked to see the lines appear. I know I am a sicko and I did warn you I was weird.

But when two lines showed up….no one was lolling. I remember staring at that little stick thinking….wtf? Saunders was on the couch with his usual ritual of nightly Netflix and a bag of doritos (he is going to kill me for saying that). I screamed out for him….”SAAAAUNNNDDEERRRSSSSSS” and he comes running into the bathroom. I showed him the dodgy little pee stick and waited for his reaction. And it was calm. Calm and then a smile started to spread across his face. And maybe a tear or two but he was happy. Beyond happy. Ecstatic. And I was just in shock. I don’t think I had even moved off the ugly blue tiles in our ensuite. I was frozen. I couldn’t believe it. Not now, I mean I had my best friends wedding next year!! (She was totally cool with it btw..best friend ever!!). We just got back from our honeymoon, I hadn’t even unpacked the suitcases from last month?! So I sent him up to the supermarket to buy a million other little pregnancy kits just to be sure…

But that shock turned into the pure bliss of knowing that I am now a MOTHER and I will get my OWN set of hands and feet to pinch all day, every day. Just writing that has brought tears to my eyes, the cruel mix of happiness and sadness.

I had pictured myself to have only boys. I love boys, I am a bit of a tomboy myself and jesus christ if I had girls and if they were anything like me…I would rather have taken a fork and stabbed my eyes out every day for the rest of my life. Plus boys LOVED their mums. I wanted my very own mumma’s boy. God I wanted that so badly.

Saunders wanted a girl which I thought was kinda cute. Really, whatever we were to have would be bloody amazing and overdosed with love. So I said I wanted to find out the gender as soon as we could and he agreed. I love the thought of it being a surprise but if any of you know me, I am miss anal and organised with a touch of….ok a huge amount of impatience. So I needed to find out. And we did. I took the harmony test at 10 weeks and found out we were having a BOY. I won. (Did I mention I am highly  competitive and a sore loser too).

A BOOOYYYYY……Oh how excited I am. I am a mother and I am having a boy. Can life get any better? Well it did because my whole pregnancy was a dream. I know all you mothers out there are going to hate me. No morning sickness, no fatigue, no cravings, great hair and skin, didn’t put on any weight until the end! I remember seeing Mason for the first time at the 12 week scan. This little bean just jumping and bouncing away. It blew our minds. Finally evidence of him being real and finally I was convinced I was pregnant!

Since I had seen my baby bean, I was hooked. I wanted to see more of him. I couldn’t wait for the next scan. I was addicted. So Saunders and I went to a baby expo in our area and there was a lady set up doing 4D ultrasounds where you could get the images sent to you and they made these soft toy bears that you could have your baby’s heart beat recorded and placed inside them so whenever you squeezed the bear, it would play the heart beat. I was a sucker for these things and getting to see Mason again…HELL YEAH! Little did I know then, that bear would be my most prized possession.

One of our most fondest memories of Mason was when the 4D scan images were finally sent to me (I was hounding the poor lady the second I got home wanting them) Saunders and I were amazed at Masons chubby, luscious and full lips. Where did he get them from? We didn’t have any lips?! Is this our baby? Maybe its a mix up? The lady did warn me that since I was only around 21 weeks that we might not be able to see anything since they usually conduct these later in pregnancy… but lo and behold there they were. Beautiful big lips. Ready to be kissed. My favourite ultrasound.

As I have said, I am little miss organised. I had the nursery set up before you could even see the penis on the first ultrasound. I already knew what I wanted, furniture, colour scheme, artwork. The lot. I put Saunders to work and he was amazing. Until it came to my feature wall of having evenly spaced white polka dots. I sat in the nursery chair and yelled out when a dot wasn’t level or positioned correctly. A few arguments here and there but he delivered the goods. Thank you Saunders. You are amazing.

So then there was what do we call this bean? I mean we can’t call it Bean Saunders or Baby Saundeezy. As I said I am miss organised, and I know we all do it, whether we are organised or not, but every woman has on their phone a list of girl and boy names they have saved in the hopes of naming their baby one day. I found boys names so much harder than girl names. Saunders and I agreed we wanted something not so common, but not so weird either. A name that was strong, flowed with the surname, was easy to spell, had good initials (you know so I can order a million things online that are personalised) and also a cute nickname. The first name, and only name on my list that I suggested to Saunders was Mason. And it fit. Perfectly. For the perfect baby boy. Mason James Saunders. Good strong name, cute nickname of Mase or Masey whom Saunders referred to and how about them initials. MJS. WINNING!

Life was good. Until 30 weeks.

My 30th birthday was in April 2017 and I had never celebrated my 18th or 21st so I thought this year I will celebrate my 30th with a big house party. 30th at 30 weeks! How fitting! I never thought I would be pregnant at my 30th and of course wanted to be slim, trim and terrific wearing a hot little dress but plans changed and I was well rounded and still squeezed myself into a hot little dress. I had around 60 people coming, arranged a souvlaki stand in the backyard and ordered an amazing unicorn cake (got the exact birthday cake Bec Judd got for her daughter) and we were all set. Saunders even built a deck at the back for the event…I know right. Winner husband right there.

20 minutes before show time I started to get sharp shooting cramps pains in my stomach.  The type of pains like a guts ache, when you need to run to a toilet before you shit yourself. I thought…what had I eaten? Is it food poisoning? But I hadn’t eaten anything all day preparing and cleaning for my party. So I ran to the toilet and waited for the horrific events to unfold….but nothing. Nothing came out. I couldn’t go?! I called Saunders over and told him I wasn’t feeling right and he simply told me “oh you are just nervous about the party and stressed”. As I mentioned before, I am a confident person and yes I do like indulging into being the centre of attention so no, I was not nervous. I don’t get nervous. I don’t get nervous when I know there is souvas and cake involved. So then I spewed. All over the bathroom sink. But hey! It worked a treat and I felt much better. And then the shooting pains started coming back. I decided to go out on the deck to get some fresh air and now Saunders was starting to become more concerned and suggested we quickly go to ER and get something to settle my stomach and then return to the party. I was like hellllll NO! Guests are arriving in 20 minutes. I can’t leave my party without me being here. I’ll go to hospital after, when everyone has left. Plus I was feeling much better now.

Saunders said if I could prove to him that I was feeling better after the little spew then he would agree to take me after the party to hospital. A few minutes later on the deck, the shooting pains of satan came back and lo and behold, I released and spewed all over the back deck. Right, time for hospital.

Get the hospital and was I a sight for sore eyes. 30 week pregnant lady, full hair and makeup done, 9inch heels waddling into ER with a mouldy old green bucket which contained spew. I got assessed and the nurses wanted to know what had happened and where I was coming from. I informed them that I think I have a stomach bug and that I needed something to settle my stomach as its my 30th birthday party tonight and I needed to get back home to guests who were arriving. The nurse looked at me and laughed and said “Darlz you aint going anywhere. You are 2cm dilated and going into early labour”. Anyways long story short, after some steroid injections in my butt (they bloody hurt) and some meds my contractions stopped the next day and I didn’t end up going home until 5 days later. However, the guests stayed at my party, ate souvas, drank and were merry. Even sent me a video whilst I was in hospital singing happy birthday to me which did bring a tear to my eye at 3am.

After that little mishap where cheeky little Mason decided to pull his prank in coming early or focusing the attention all on him (traits from his mama), the pregnancy continued to be a breeze! I didn’t show til the last month and I was all belly despite my diet of gnocchi. I was wearing heels right til the end, had my maternity shoot ( I didn’t really want to do one but so glad I did), nursery was good to go, car seat installed, bags packed, everything was ready and set for Mason. Mason was an avid kicker, was very active and happy.

But he was also very very cheeky.

After pulling that prank at 30 weeks, Mason had no signs of ever wanting to come out. Mason was due 1 July. That date passed, and so did more days, then a week. I was getting quite over it and impatient. I was trying the pineapple, the hot and spicy foods that would burn your asshole, the attempts at sex (or more like beached whale sex), stretch and sweeps, anything and everything just to bring on labour but nothing worked. But true to Mason’s cheekiness, an induction date was set for 14 July and of course I went into natural labour the day before….at 3am.

I woke up on that Wednesday 13 July to the infamous and slightly disturbing bloody show, called the hospital to give them an update and stayed at home. The cramping I had been receiving all week started to amp up by that afternoon and by the evening my contractions were coming and going. I was bouncing on my fit ball whilst Saunders was timing the contractions. Labour was finally here! We were so excited/scared shitless but we were finally going to meet this little cheeky fucker whom we have grown to know and love over the 10 months! (Mason made me wait 41 weeks and 5 days the smartass! Not to mention a 36 hour labour!!)

Couldn’t handle the contractions any longer so we called the hospital and they told us to come in. Lets get this show on the road! It was finally time to meet Mason, Mase, Masey and MJS!!