This post is kind of long, sorry! Some have asked about "my story", and it's a good place to keep it for the future when I don't remember everything!
On Monday, October 26th, we went to the doctor and had one more pre-natal appointment. Pretty much everything was the same as the week before, which was disappointing. Like I said in the post on the 21st, my doctor didn't want me to go more than one week past my due date, so we scheduled a time to be induced. We set it up to be Thursday, October 29th and then Dr. Savage stripped my membranes. She warned us not to get our hopes up too high because it does something for about 50% of women, and nothing for the other half. She also said to call by the end of the day if we decided to switch and be induced on Tuesday instead. We actually decided on the way home to go ahead and do it on Tuesday. It would give my Dad two more days with the little guy since he was going back to Hawaii the next Monday, and Grandma Pat was going out of town on Thursday.
We went home, ate lunch, took a nap, and then Dave had to go to work. We decided to be prepared just in case, so most everything was already in his car. He left, and I started having contractions about a half an hour later at 4:00 pm. They started out pretty close, maybe 7-8 minutes apart at first. I finished some work stuff, took a shower and got ready to go. Dave and I had agreed to meet at my parents house if I went into labor while he was at work and then drive to the hospital in one car, so I packed the rest of our stuff up and headed to Orem. The contractions were now 3-5 minutes apart.
I called Dave when I got off of the freeway, and he quickly left work and met me at their house. We took a picture or two, and headed to the hospital. We got there about 9pm and they took me to a room. They hooked me up to monitors (at that point I was still dilated to a 3 and 75% effaced, but the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart) and watched me for an hour to see if they were going to keep me. After an hour (10:15 pm), still the same. They called Dr. Savage and she said to keep me for another hour and to have me walk around. So we made two laps around labor & delivery. It took forever becuase I had to stop about every ten steps to have a contraction. They were that close together, and so strong!
They checked me again after the second hour (11:15 pm) and I was still only 3cm, but 90% effaced. They called Dr. Savage again, and she decided to be nice. She said to keep me and she would come break my water. So, they came in and started the iv and asked if I wanted an epidural. I said yes, so they did that too (about 11:45 pm). Dr. Savage broke my water (about 12:15 am) and unfortunately there was meconium in my water. They hooked me up to a tube thingy that flushed out my uterus until I delivered so that it wouldn't be such a risk when he was born. I went to 4cm and 100% effaced pretty much right away, and they told me get some sleep while I was able to.
After two hours (about 2:30 am) I was feeling pain again. I got some more pain medicine, and the nurse decided to check and see how much I had dilated. She was very suprised to find that I was fully dilated and ready to go! They called Dr. Savage but she said to have me wait to start pushing for about an hour since he was still fairly high. She wanted him to move down on his own more before the pushing began. And then about 3:30 am, we started pushing. We pushed, and pushed, and pushed. Once he finally crowned, they got Dr. Savage in. I pushed with her three times, and at 5:40 am, Tanner was finally here! (Yes, that means I pushed for two hours.)
They immediately put him on my tummy and I cried while I looked at him for the first time. They took him and started to work on him and do his apgar score and all of that. There were NICU nurses and a doctor there for the birth because of the meconium. Tanner got an 8 on his apgar, but wasn't breathing really well, so they decided to take him to the NICU and put him on a c-pap for an hour. After they weighed him and all of that, Dave went with him to the NICU. I had torn a little during delivery, so Dr. Savage started stitching me up.
About five minutes later, Dave came back in with Tanner. Apparently when they got to the NICU he decided he wanted to be with his Mommy and started breathing just fine on his own. So they sent him back! We recovered for an hour, Tanner and Dave went to the nursery for his first bath and newborn screening, and the nurses got me all cleaned up. Then we met downstairs on the Mother/Baby floor. We were in the hospital for the normal 48 hour stay, and came home on Thursday, the 29th.
I feel like the whole thing went very well! We all did great, and we are just loving being a little family!
