Tatum's Birth Story Part 1: The Birth

I've put off writing this for way too long, mostly because I feel like I hardly remember most of labor with Tatum cuz it went SO fast.

But I want to write it down, what ever I do remember, because it's such an important day to me now.

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3:00AM.

I woke up to go to the bathroom. Again. I was supposed to call the hospital at 4AM to verify if we could come in at 5AM for our scheduled induction. Part of me was tempted to just stay up, but my labor and delivery friend Merri was chastising me in my ear for even thinking of being awake longer than needed right before I would *hopefully* be in labor.

Finally settled back down to sleep, I woke again to my phone's blaring alarm. I got up and tried to just find my voice (4AM is a hard time of the day for most people you know), and was dialing the hospital when they started calling me. I hung up on the other line and picked up the new call.

"Hello is this Danet Peterson?" a voiced asked (pronouncing my name danette as usual--those of you who are new to my French name--it's duh-nay).

"Yes I replied," my heart skipping a few beats. Usually the hospital would call you only if they didn't have the space or staff to induce you at the scheduled time. We had been scheduled for 5AM, hence the whole "call the hour before" thing.

"We have you scheduled for a 5AM induction. We're going to need to push you back a couple hours. Could you come in at 7AM?" the perky voice of the charge nurse asked.

"Of course!" I said, silently thanking Heavenly Father I didn't have to wait all day or a whole other day before meeting the little kicker inside of me. I was so DONE being pregnant at this point.

I hung up the phone, told Danny we had a couple extra hours to sleep, and went to sleep till 6AM.

While I slept, I of course had some CRAZY dream that they pushed back my time to be 1:48PM that afternoon. it was so weird that the time was that specific cuz it would never be that specific in real life.

Here was my thinking. I'd sleep for a few more hours, wake up and get ready, and with our new appointment being when it was, I would have time to say hi to Joshua before we left. This was actually a lot better in my mind.

6AM rolled around and I got dressed and ready, thinking to myself that it might very well be pointless to curl my hair and do my make up, but that I didn't do that when I was induced with Joshua and I wish I had--it's distracting in the best of ways and kinda relaxing for me. Those of you who know me well know I don't do well with uncertainty, which is part of why being induced is totally okay with me. At least I have a date that I know for sure I'll start having the baby. ;)

Alright so boring part: we met our nurse (not that she was boring--she was super nice, a girl named Stephanie), she checked where I was measuring for dilation and effacement. And we got all hooked up for the monitors, pitocin, etc.

The worst part of the whole first couple hours was that I swear, despite how experienced and great my nurse was, she could not for the life of her get my blood drawn from the vein she chose for the IV line. It was a good vein according to her (not like I know much about that) but for whatever reason, it wasn't letting blood out well at all. It was the most uncomfortable IV I've ever had thanks to all the extra squeezing and poking. I half wish she had just done a new IV site to get blood samples. :/

The horrid needle part aside, that morning went super fast. I ordered a light breakfast (I had only drunk my shakeology on the way over there) and then the pitocin drip was started at 9AM.

I honestly feel like the morning FLEW by. I hadn't really felt tons of the contractions I was having. They were there, but more of a nuisance than anything. Very regular--every 3-5 min apart. But just not painful.

Danny and I watched a movie on TV, I think it was called Air Force One? The one with the hijacked airplane, and the super awesome guy from star wars is the president? What's his name again--Han Solo, Harrison Ford. Knew it would come to me. ;)

It's a pretty intense movie, and we started watching it near the middle.

11:55AM. I had been bouncing a lot on the birthing ball for the last 2.5 hours. My nurse Stephanie had suggested I try rolling back and forth instead of bouncing during the contractions cuz that would help the baby more than the bouncing motion to descend in the birth canal. I had been doing what she suggested for a good hour it felt like. Not really sure on the times cuz honestly it's a blur thinking about it now. She had checked me at around 11:30AM to see where I was at. I started at a 3 and was super effaced, and she was now calling me around a 4.

I told her I don't even KNOW how many times that I knew this time SHOULD be faster, but that after 21.5 hours of labor with Joshua, I just didn't really believe I'd see a baby before late that night at the soonest. She countered and said she was betting we'd have the baby before she was off from her shift at 4PM that day.

It wasn't until 11:55AM that I started to really believe her.

I had been rolling into a contraction on the birthing ball. The contraction itself was more intense for sure, but still not totally unbearable. I tried to stand up and readjust so my hips weren't as uncomfortable, and felt a warm gush of fluid. I moved slightly again, and it happened again.

Those of you who haven't ever been pregnant: at 39 weeks and 1 day, you can't really see over your tummy while sitting down to check out what's going on "down there." So I stood up. It felt like I was peeing myself and couldn't stop. lol. How's that for an analogy for you?

I waddled to the bathroom and had Danny call in the nurse. Yes I admit to waddling.

"Hi," he spoke into the microphone. "My wife thinks her water just broke. Could you send in the nurse?"

He's so calm all the time. I was kinda freaking out inside. It's a good thing, but usually when your water breaks, baby isn't too far off, and if they still take a while, then you're bound to start really FEELING contractions and trust me, they're not fun when you're on pitocin. Not fun either way, but REALLY not fun on pitocin.

She came in, verified that my water had indeed broken, and we got me situated to be able to walk the halls. (Giant lady diaper anyone?)

I didn't know last time I was induced that I could request a monitor that could travel with me so that we could walk around. Danny and I spent the better part of the next hour in the halls, stopping to rock and do the "labor dance" to ride out the contractions as they got more and more intense and painful.

Still hadn't seen the doctor yet by the way. Dr. Huish was finishing his church meetings I'm sure.

My monitor started to beep at us, which apparently meant that we needed a new battery on the monitor. We took about 5 minutes to get back to the room and then my nurse came in to inform us that we'd need to let it charge for a bit, and that Dr. Huish was here and ready to check and see how we were doing.

I can honestly say at this point I was ready to cry. I had been enduring the contractions the best I could for the past hour, and I was to the point that I just felt yucky, shaky, and ready to have an epidural.

After informing my nurse I was ready for the epidural (and trying not to feel like I was weak for even asking---don't get me started on how much guilt moms have these days for having epidurals--labor is LABOR; we all deal with it differently and medicine is there for a reason!)...eh hem. So after letting her know I was ready, she had me get back on the bed so the Doc could check my progress since A) having my water broken, and B) contracting steadily and hard for about an hour since then.

12:55PM. "Well, your water broke!" the doctor said cheerily. "It's great that it broke on it's own. Things look like they're moving right along." Again with the perky voice. Another painful contraction was starting as he said this, and then proceeded to jerk around "in there" to make sure all the water was free. I felt another gush of fluid, and the contraction I was having literally left me unable to breathe well for a good 20-30 seconds.

My doc was great, don't get me wrong, but when you're in pain and he's the source of "extra" pain, he's not to fun anymore.

"I'd call you a roomy 4cm and pretty much completely effaced." Stupid perky voice. I wanted to kick him honestly.

My water broke. ON IT'S OWN. I had contracted heavily for an hour since then. I'd been TRYING to relax into the contractions. And I was still only a 4. Lovely. Gimme the epidural, was all I could think to myself.

Thankfully, the anesthesiologist was waiting just inside the room. She came in, got me prepped, and informed me of the general process. The whole "you'll have to hold very still, even when the contractions hurt like hell" schpeel.

I was so grateful that the epidural was GOING to be helping, but at the present moment as she was telling me this, I just wanted to fast-forward to when I couldn't feel anything.

Danny held my hand and I'm sure I pinched my own fingers tightly as she locally numbed the area of my back where she'd insert the epidural line. It happened pretty quickly in all honesty. But when she finished, I was still feeling contractions.

And they were getting worse. I was shaking more while trying to hold still, and I felt clammy and sick.

I remember my nurse and the anesthesiologist talking to each other quietly about me, and the anesthesiologist saying something about how sometimes having the epidural placed and started can cause side effects like I was experiencing. But I wasn't really paying a whole lot of attention.

1:15PM Finally she was done and she started pumping the medicine through my line. It didn't help right away, which I had been expecting.

1:25PM But what I wasn't expecting was to feel minimal contracting on my right side, and EVERYTHING on my left side. My nurse could see I was obviously still pretty uncomfortable, and so she had Danny help me move between contractions to let gravity pull the numbing agent to my left side.

1:30PM. "Is it feeling any better, or are you still feeling a lot on the left side." Cringing through another contraction, though it was actually less intense feeling than before, I nodded yes.

"And I'm feeling like...pressure sometimes."

My nurse paused and watched the monitor like a hawk. "You're feeling pressure how?" She asked. "Rectal pressure?"

We waited another 2-3 min for the next contraction to happen. "Yeah I guess like rectal pressure." I told her definitely.

She started moving quickly, grabbing gloves from the tray and lifting the hospital gown while explaining what she was doing.

"The baby has been having variables,dips in her heart rate, during each contraction. The rectal pressure is likely because she is descending further into the birth canal. I want to check, but I think you might be complete."

"Complete?" I asked blankly. You'd think I understood this after having a baby before, but I think I was going into shock.

"Dilated fully to a ten."

My heart skipped a few beats. 1:38PM.

This was so fast.

I checked my phone for messages from my mom and mother in law. (Cuz that's what you do when someone is stuffing their hand up your vagina to determine where the baby is)

"Yep, you're a 10! I'll page the doctor! This baby is coming now! And she has a lot of hair!" my nurse exclaimed.

I couldn't even use my phone. Danny had to send our moms a message to say to hurry over if they wanted to be here for delivery cuz this baby was coming and coming FAST.

1:44PM There was a knock at the door.

"Hello?" It was my mom. She had been too anxious to keep waiting after she heard my water broke, so she came over to the hospital as soon as she could. The text from Danny saying "she's a 10" had just barely sent.

Good timing mom. GOOD timing. ;) she proceeded to exclaim that I didn't even look like I'd been in labor at all. My make -up setting spray works wonders let me tell you. If you haven't tried on, check it out! http://www.lorealparisusa.com/en/products/makeup/face/makeup-primer/infallible-pro-spray-set-makeup-extender-setting-spray.aspx

The nurses were getting my legs up in the stirrups, prepping the bed for delivery and making sure things were ready for the doctor to come in.

1:48PM Dr. H came back in and in a very chipper voice asked if we were ready to meet our baby.

yes. we certainly were. :)

1:50PM "alright let's see what you can do," Dr H told me, indicating that I could start pushing.

pushing felt like a breeze compared to contractions. I could still feel just enough to know what I needed to do, and it honestly felt like second nature. #secondbabyperks right?

I pulled myself as far forward as I could, pulling my legs for all I was worth. It's not exactly an easy position with a big ol' preggo belly in the way. But we were doing this and this baby was going to be in my arms as soon as possible.

2 pushes later (2 full contractions of pushing--2-3 pushes per contractions), "Stop right there for me," Dr H said, concentrating. "I just need to rotate her, so I need you to help me with a couple of half-pushes. Can you do that for me?"

I nodded, feeling a little anxious. I squeezed Danny's hand, and he squeezed back. "She has a lot of hair," was all everyone kept saying. "And it's dark!"

Time felt like it was slowing down during those quick little pushes. "And we're good!" he exclaimed! Now give me a real good push and she'll be out!"

I held my breath and pushed for all I was worth. It was like a huge crowd was cheering me on. All 4-5 people in the room that is.

I released the breath I'd been holding as our little girl was born and leaned back. Her little cries broke the brief stillness that comes immediately following a birth. Tears pricked my eyes. She was so beautiful! And loud! (just like her momma!) My goodness she had a set of lungs.

It was like she was telling us she was much happier where she came from so put her back please!

Tatum Josie Peterson, born Janurary 31, 2016 at 1:58PM after exactly 4 hours and 56 minutes of labor. (4 times faster than her brother was born if you want to know).

Her tiny features, her long fingers and toes, everything about her was perfect.

Danny got to cut the cord of course, and within 5 minutes of her being born, his mom and sister arrived. They had received his text and headed right over in the middle of sacrament meeting.

From the moment I held her, she's nuzzled into my neck. Even now, at just over 6 weeks old, that's her favorite way for me to hold her. I'd like to think she likes to feel my voice and my heart beat up there, since she was listening to it every day all day long not too long ago.

I'll have to share another post about life since we've been home, but for now, just know that everything about this day was perfect. Shockingly fast, but perfect.

Part two to come: Sibling Love at First Sight