upcoming baby issues

Time to call on friends/family/neighbours and give meaning to "it takes a village".

We had multiple people on standby for us to ensure availability. We also asked specific people (eg daycare teachers for our 2 kids) so our kids would be comfortable with them and they'd be comfortable with our kids. Note: we asked people we're close/friends with even if we met professionally.

After birth, particularly after our 2nd, I drove back and forth non-stop between the hospital and home because my wife needed help but my eldest was home sick with a high fever.

like Stock has suggested, friends, neighbours.
You might also be able to find someone who would be willing to look after her for a day. I know some moms on Facebook groups have asked and received good responses. You have time to find someone who you would trust.

I know hospitals are not keeping mom and baby for too long now, they can go home in 24 hrs if everything is ok.
If they need to stay longer, then you can leave hospital earlier and the nurses will help your wife until she can leave. The most important is that you are there for the birth. If she has a c-section then it's longer stay so you'd need to have a plan for that too.

In Ottawa, kids are not allowed to come and no visitors. The dad cannot go back and forth either, once mom is admitted, the dad can join and has to stay until discharge. If dad decide to leave he won't be allowed back in. I was told that my husband will also get meals and a "sofa-bed" to sleep and to pack his things too and don't forget to bring car seat. So check the hospital rules. Also if you have covid symptoms you definitely will not be able to join your wife. Hopefully the rules change as more people get vaccinated...

I'm lucky my mom already has a visa but might not make it on time due to twins being unpredictable and also with all the travel restrictions and quarantine it's a bit complicated. So we have family on standby by.

ckay1980 wrote: ↑ like Stock has suggested, friends, neighbours.
You might also be able to find someone who would be willing to look after her for a day. I know some moms on Facebook groups have asked and received good responses. You have time to find someone who you would trust.

I know hospitals are not keeping mom and baby for too long now, they can go home in 24 hrs if everything is ok.
If they need to stay longer, then you can leave hospital earlier and the nurses will help your wife until she can leave. The most important is that you are there for the birth. If she has a c-section then it's longer stay so you'd need to have a plan for that too.

In Ottawa, kids are not allowed to come and no visitors. The dad cannot go back and forth either, once mom is admitted, the dad can join and has to stay until discharge. If dad decide to leave he won't be allowed back in. I was told that my husband will also get meals and a "sofa-bed" to sleep and to pack his things too and don't forget to bring car seat. So check the hospital rules. Also if you have covid symptoms you definitely will not be able to join your wife. Hopefully the rules change as more people get vaccinated...

I'm lucky my mom already has a visa but might not make it on time due to twins being unpredictable and also with all the travel restrictions and quarantine it's a bit complicated. So we have family on standby by.

We're in Ottawa as well an expecting our second in September.

We found a midwife for labour and delivery. We plan to use the Ottawa Birth and Wellness Centre, which is a little bit more flexible and discharges ~4 hours after delivery without follow-up appointments at home. Since they only have 3 suites, though, our backup is likely to be a home birth.

We will still need help, though our situation is a bit easier as our family is all Canadian so travel is strictly domestic. My mother in law is likely fly to Ottawa to assist, in particular to keep our son busy, and likely take him to a hotel or something while my wife is in labour if we're forced into a home birth due to lack of room at the birth centre.

Midwives can be difficult to secure, though. We called 3 midwiferies just 2 days after my wife tested positive, at 4 weeks + 2 days. Two of them were already "booked up for September".

Dynatos wrote: ↑ We're in Ottawa as well an expecting our second in September.

We found a midwife for labour and delivery. We plan to use the Ottawa Birth and Wellness Centre, which is a little bit more flexible and discharges ~4 hours after delivery without follow-up appointments at home. Since they only have 3 suites, though, our backup is likely to be a home birth.

We will still need help, though our situation is a bit easier as our family is all Canadian so travel is strictly domestic. My mother in law is likely fly to Ottawa to assist, in particular to keep our son busy, and likely take him to a hotel or something while my wife is in labour if we're forced into a home birth due to lack of room at the birth centre.

Midwives can be difficult to secure, though. We called 3 midwiferies just 2 days after my wife tested positive, at 4 weeks + 2 days. Two of them were already "booked up for September".

You're lucky! I'm stuck with having a c-section because of previous two were c-sections and looking at 4-5 days hospital stay That's if everything goes well. Worse case scenario twins or one of them, could end up in NICU and that will certainly complicate things further. It's like we'll have to pack for a vacation! Clothes and other stuff for 2 newborns, my husband and myself + take the two car seats with us. We'll also have to plan for our two other kids as they will still be at school (lunch bag, school bus, etc) and get my in-laws or mom up to date. Due in May, and I don't think covid rules will change much by then.
Delivering at the Civic and I heard the food is horrible. We can't have access to the kitchen but can bring coolers and nurse will heat food for us if necessary. We can go to cafeteria or tims.

I had a midwife at the Markham Stouffville Hospital and can’t recommend it enough!!! (If you can and/or low risk). I love that they don’t rush through our pregnancy appointments, and afterwards they visit us at home for the first 6 weeks (the appointments are the same intervals as Pediatrician, just that they came to our house), and this was during COVID last year. They’re also always available by phone if you have any questions, which is always handy.

Now the birth part was also great - Markham Stouffville has a midwife unit right next to the labour unit, so in case anything escalates, you can transferred. For us, we were out of there in 3 hours after

Dynatos wrote: ↑ We're in Ottawa as well an expecting our second in September.

We found a midwife for labour and delivery. We plan to use the Ottawa Birth and Wellness Centre, which is a little bit more flexible and discharges ~4 hours after delivery without follow-up appointments at home. Since they only have 3 suites, though, our backup is likely to be a home birth.

We will still need help, though our situation is a bit easier as our family is all Canadian so travel is strictly domestic. My mother in law is likely fly to Ottawa to assist, in particular to keep our son busy, and likely take him to a hotel or something while my wife is in labour if we're forced into a home birth due to lack of room at the birth centre.

Midwives can be difficult to secure, though. We called 3 midwiferies just 2 days after my wife tested positive, at 4 weeks + 2 days. Two of them were already "booked up for September".

Congratulations!

ckay1980 wrote: ↑ You're lucky! I'm stuck with having a c-section because of previous two were c-sections and looking at 4-5 days hospital stay That's if everything goes well. Worse case scenario twins or one of them, could end up in NICU and that will certainly complicate things further. It's like we'll have to pack for a vacation! Clothes and other stuff for 2 newborns, my husband and myself + take the two car seats with us. We'll also have to plan for our two other kids as they will still be at school (lunch bag, school bus, etc) and get my in-laws or mom up to date. Due in May, and I don't think covid rules will change much by then.
Delivering at the Civic and I heard the food is horrible. We can't have access to the kitchen but can bring coolers and nurse will heat food for us if necessary. We can go to cafeteria or tims.

Best of luck. Such complicated times with covid rules around.

Lol discharge 4hrs after delivery???
I had 2 c-sections and was agonizing the trip home after 4 days with the first one and 2 days after the second one.

My husband did all the diaper changes for the first 48hrs.

Lol discharge 4hrs after delivery???
I had 2 c-sections and was agonizing the trip home after 4 days with the first one and 2 days after the second one.

My husband did all the diaper changes for the first 48hrs.

OP, I’m not sure the rules for entry from Canada from your mom’s country of origin, but couldn’t she just come as a visitor for like a month?

dentonic88 wrote: ↑ immigrant here so not many family connection.
our second baby delivery is planned in 3rd quarter of this year. now i need to take my wife to hospital for all that but we also have 18 months old daughter who will be left alone. I have given a though to asking some office friends but it could be too much i think.

due to covid hospitals might now allow my daughter to enter the hospital and also she is very young. i have though of asking my mother to join from home country and apply for super or visitor visa for her. Problem is visa issue timeframe is long these days due to covid so even though i apply she womt be able to make it. Is there a way such applications be prioritized ?
Also would like to hear from parents who are immigrants. How would you sort out such issue if you ever get into this kind of problem ?

Congratulations. We had our first baby last week and our parents were unable to come as biometrics centers are not open yet for visitor visa in our home country yet. We applied in Sep 2020 and it has not moved anywhere. I have contacted my local MP office and they can't help much with expediting the visa unless you have given your biometrics already. Luckily for us, we have been in Canada for 10 years so we have many friends who were ready to help us with anything, like going to groceries, providing food etc. They are our saviours in the current situation.

With vaccinations being planned to be rolled out, visa restrictions could be eased but again remember there are a load of people ahead of you in the queue sine Mar 2020, so there will be residual delays in visa processing even if everything is open. So please be prepared to handle the situation on your own, there is no harm in asking your friends. Or you could also get someone to stay at home to look after your daughter. Good luck!

abshahul wrote: ↑ Congratulations. We had our first baby last week and our parents were unable to come as biometrics centers are not open yet for visitor visa in our home country yet. We applied in Sep 2020 and it has not moved anywhere. I have contacted my local MP office and they can't help much with expediting the visa unless you have given your biometrics already. Luckily for us, we have been in Canada for 10 years so we have many friends who were ready to help us with anything, like going to groceries, providing food etc. They are our saviours in the current situation.

With vaccinations being planned to be rolled out, visa restrictions could be eased but again remember there are a load of people ahead of you in the queue sine Mar 2020, so there will be residual delays in visa processing even if everything is open. So please be prepared to handle the situation on your own, there is no harm in asking your friends. Or you could also get someone to stay at home to look after your daughter. Good luck!

Does it mean I can submit the visa application and contact MP next day to prioritize it ? The biometric centre might be open in Pakistan as I know someone who recently did biometric for UK so should be same for Canada then.

Another thing - I have been advised that if you give an impression that mother is coming to take care of the child to MP or immigrations then they consider this as a job and job on visit visa isnt allowed. This is why they straight away reject the visa - any thoughts on this?

Didi_beee wrote: ↑ Lol discharge 4hrs after delivery???
I had 2 c-sections and was agonizing the trip home after 4 days with the first one and 2 days after the second one.

My husband did all the diaper changes for the first 48hrs.

A c-section is not a low risk birth. If you had a midwife, you would have been transferred to hospital to have the c-section performed, and then been kept in hospital longer than 4 hours.

For the vast majority of low risk births, a hospital delivery is not required and just consumes a bed that could be used for things that need it.

Our first was born in a hospital labour and delivery ward, but without my wife taking any medications. No epidural, no laughing gas, no morphine. And it wasn't a short labour. He was born 23 hours after her water broke, with ~12 hours of active labour and 3 hours of pushing. But we had 0 complications. There's no reason we couldn't have given birth somewhere else, with post-partum support delivered at home.

So that's what a midwife is facilitating for baby #2.

dentonic88 wrote: ↑ Does it mean I can submit the visa application and contact MP next day to prioritize it ? The biometric centre might be open in Pakistan as I know someone who recently did biometric for UK so should be same for Canada then.

Another thing - I have been advised that if you give an impression that mother is coming to take care of the child to MP or immigrations then they consider this as a job and job on visit visa isnt allowed. This is why they straight away reject the visa - any thoughts on this?

The VFS centers are advised by respective countries to start accepting biometric for certain visa categories, so UK allowing biometric for visitor visa doesn't mean we can.

I know many of my friends have applied for the parents visa in the past quoting child birth as the very reason, so I don't think they would deny it on this basis.

My 1st pregnancy was definitely more chaotic than my second.
My contractions started at 4am but I didn't go into the hospital until 7pm that day. I think that was when the contractions were close enough to go to the hospital. My water never broke and I was already 7 cm dilated. The pain was unbearable by 11pm so I asked for the epidural. After the epidural I was so sleepy because they also give you oxytocin which helps with contractions but also makes you very sleepy. I just remember sleeping or being really sleepy most of the time and the nurse waking me up every so often telling me it was time to push and it is very hard to push when you cannot feel anything down there and half asleep. By 9am, my doctor said my contractions were slowing down and every time I pushed, it seemed like the umbilical cord was interferring with something because the baby's heart rate fluxuated weird when the pushing occurred. He said I can continue to try to push for god knows how long or just go for the C-section. I was so tired and didn't want to risk hurting the baby so I went for the C-section.
I requested a private room but North York General maternity ward is very busy and high in demand among a lot of the asian population. I was in a semi private room after the birth for a day and a half. The family that I shared the room with literally had their entire extended family the whole day. I overheard them say that the mother went through postpartum depression for the first one so they wanted to be their to support her for the next. It was awful, they were loud and encroaching into our space. We couldn't get any sleep when our baby was alseep because they were so loud.
Well when the baby comes, they do various blood tests and my boy's bilirubin levels were higher than normal so we had to stay in the hospital longer than normal. We checked in Nov 30th and was eventually discharged Dec 4th but still had to go back to the hospital on the 6th and 8th to make sure his bilirubin levels were normalizing.

It was chaotic. My husband kept on running out to the store to pick up things we didn't have like a space heater (baby's room felt cold) and breast pump, the cloth diapers we subscribed to were too big but luckily I had spare disposable ones but he had to run out to get more of that too.

Second delivery was a planned C-section so a week before expected due date, we had the appointment scheduled. We were at the hospital at 12pm and my daughter came out at 2pm. We stayed the standard two days due to C section delivery. My parents, brother and his girlfriend stayed at my place to watch my son and they brought him over the first day she was born. Everything was smooth and when we got home, we were able to handle everything ourself since my husband took 2 weeks off and my son was already in daycare.

So if you have a little one at home while expecting another one, I would recommend having someone you can trust to be able to watch your daughter just in case you need to stay longer. Best to have your mother if you can.