Chantal Kreviazuk on being a mother

The night before my first baby was born, we had a raging party. I had already done way too much that day: I hiked, I swam, I cooked food for dozens of guests. By the end of the night, people were doing shots, and I thought, the one night we have a party, I'm going to go into labour. By 2 a.m., people were passed out all over my house, even sleeping in the baby's nursery. The kitchen was a disaster, the sink clogged with broken glass.

In full nesting mode, I found a plunger to clear the kitchen sink. As soon as I pushed it down, my water broke. I couldn't drive myself to the hospital, and my husband, Raine, was in no shape to drive. I had to call a friend who hadn't been at the party to come get us. When we got to the hospital, the contractions were coming really fast. After my epidural, the nurses told me I'd have about three hours before the baby was born.

So I got on the phone. I called my mom, my mother-in-law and my mixer. Avril Lavigne was finishing her album. I had worked on it with her, and she was living with us at the time. In between contraction (which I could still feel despite the epidural), I talked to the mixer about what still needed to be done. After I hung up, a half hour after getting the epidural, I told the nurse I had to push. She told me I just had to go to the bathroom. I begged her to look. She did, and she finally let me push. One push and Rowan's head was out. Second push and there was his tiny, beautiful body.

"I needed a pause"
Sixteen months later, I was back in the hospital giving birth to my second son. Lucca Jon came out in one push. We had tried to schedule his arrival around a music session, but it didn't work out that way. Right after the birth, we went home to a recording session,

I didn't think, even the second time around, that I needed a pause. It wasn't until two weeks later that I realized I was going to have to slow down. Surrender came slowly, and the there I was – my ambition slipping away and a great, surging love for my boys taking over my life.

Page 1 of 3