Sunday, September 20, 2009

Tatum Rae McFarlane Blay!

It's a GiRL!!!

Here's how it all went down...

On Sunday August 30th (my dad's birthday) I hadn't really noticed a lot of fetal movement. I felt some movement, but not as much as I normally do. I thought about going into Labour & Delivery that morning, but knowing that baby is usually most active at night, I decided to wait. So that night, I am laying in bed, and I feel nothing. I started poking around, and felt a couple little kicks, but barely. Being nervous parents, we called L & D and they told us to come in and get checked out. At 11pm we called my dad to come over and watch Rylan so we could go to St. Joe's. We got to St. Joe's at 11:30 and was hooked up to the monitors right away. Thankfully there was a strong heart beat and my mind was put to ease. Although, I guess my blood pressure didn't hear that the baby was fine and was still a little tense and higher than it should have been. So they kept me a little longer, took some blood and waited for my blood pressure to come back down.

We waited, and waited and waited. 3 deliveries and a c-section later the Dr. came in and told me that they would be inducing me the following day because I was 3 days overdue anyway. I REALLY, REALLY didn't want to be induced, but for the safety of our baby, I agreed.


At about 1:30am I had a cervical catheter put in since I was only 1.5cm dilated. I was crampy and contractions started immediately. I had this done when I had Rylan as well, so I knew what to expect. Once the catheter fell out with Rylan, the contractions stopped, so I didn't think anything of these ones. After being monitored for another hour, we were free to leave... about 4am! Since we left so late, the staff said that we would be called last for the induction the next day so we could rest... yeah right!


We got home and went to bed. I was still having pretty strong contractions that kept waking me up. I would sit up and look at the clock, then go back to sleep. The next contraction would come, I would sit up again, look at the clock again and I would completely forget what time I looked before! This went on for quite a while. Finally at 6am, I got up to pee and out came the catheter. I thought, sweet! The contractions will stop and I can finally get a decent sleep! Nope! They just kept on coming. At 8am I decided I should start timing the contractions for real and loaded up www.contractionmaster.com on the computer. (Awesome website for the labouring mother!) After about 1/2 an hour of timing, they were coming 1-3 minutes apart. They were painful, but not as painful as I remember with Rylan so I didn't think it was going to be the real deal.


Once again we called my dad to come over and watch Rylan. I told him not to rush, we still needed to shower and I was planning on doing my hair AND makeup. My dad got to our place at 8:45 and we were off to St. Joe's again!


Tony let me out at the door and went to park the car. Since both of us thought I would be getting sent home for false labour, we didn't bring the bag up with us. I got to triage and the receptionist asked if I had an appointment. I said, "No, I think I might be in labour." She kind of rolled her eyes at me, thinking that there is no way I could be in labour. I was pretty calm. So she sent me back to get checked... and I was already 7cm!!!

Baby was really low, and bag of water was bulging. The nurse said that if my water was to break on it's own, I would be having the baby within the hour! Tony had slipped out to get some Tim Horton's for us while I was getting checked so I quickly sent him a text to get his ass back up to L&D!! He got back up in time, thankfully! We walked back to the birthing suite (the same room I had Rylan in!). I quickly asked for an epidural. I was scared to death to push without it... I really didn't want to feel what it was like to get stitches down there!

Before the anesthesiologist could give me an epidural I had to have blood work and an IV started. So I had a nurse on each arm trying to get things going so I didn't miss the opportunity. As we waited for the anesthesiologist to come into the room the phone rang. It was the lab, one of the vials of blood got sent without a label, so they had to take my blood again! I started to panic a little bit thinking I wasn't going to get an epidural after all. The anesthesiologist was amazing. So nice and hilarious... except I was in a hurry and he just kept talking and talking and talking and all I could do was squeeze my legs tighter and tighter together to make sure this baby stayed in until that needle was in my back!

At 12pm our nurse (did I mention we also had the same nurse as we did with Rylan?) went for lunch. She was half joking, but asked if I could wait to have the baby until she got back. Not 5 minutes later, the urge to push was upon me. I paged the backup nurse and she came to check me. Sure enough, I was ready to push!
She called Mary (our nurse) to come back if she wanted to be there for the birth. Mary rushed back and I
started pushing at 12:15pm. One contraction and one push later at 12:17 Tatum Rae McFarlane Blay made her grand entrance! Weighing 8lbs, 40zs and 19.5" in length. She was the same weight as Rylan and looks so much like her!
We are thrilled to pieces with our 2 girls... a dream come true!