Tavvin's Birth Story

Wednesday, September 26th, I had my 39 week Dr. appointment. It went as it had the past three weeks, I weighed a little more, blood pressure was normal, and I hadn't progressed any further (was at a 1 and 70% effaced). This time however, my doctor asked if I had had my membranes stripped yet? I didn't even know what that meant. He told me it's something they sometimes do in the last weeks to get labor progressing. It includes slightly detaching the placenta from the uterine wall (I could be a little off on this, but it's something like that) which releases hormones that start labor. Sometimes it works really well and sometimes it does nothing. I went home from the appointment feeling really crampy and strange, so I figured, hey maybe this is getting things going!

Friday, September 28th, and 1 a.m. I was woken up by some fairly intense pain. I grabbed Shad's arm in my sleep and starting making some pain noises. I think I really freaked him out because he jumped wide awake asking if I was ok. I told him I thought I just had my first real contraction. Sure enough a few minutes later it happened again. We decided we weren't going to sleep well through this so we just woke up and started timing them. By 4 o'clock they were coming every five minutes and lasting about a minute each, which we had read means you should head to the hospital. We called the women's center and asked what to do. They said, well, it's up to you. (Up to us?? We've never done this before how should we know?). They suggested taking a warm bath or getting up and walking around. After a little while we were both getting freaked out so we decided to go to the hospital and just see where I was at. They sent us to a room, had me get into a gown, and said they would monitor me for an hour to see if I made any progression. I was at a 1 1/2 when we arrived and the same 3 hours later (ya the whole 1 hour thing didn't happen, they didn't seem too worried about me). I was exhausted and hurting a ton so they gave me a shot of phenergan (holy ouch!) and a lortab and sent us home. My conractions died down enough that I was able to spend basically the whole day sleeping. 

Friday, September 28th, evening sometime. We were both a tired mess, and I was feeling more pain as my meds wore off so we just ran and got a pizza for dinner. I was halfway through eating when the contractions started coming back even stronger than they had the night before. We started timing again. By ten o'clock I told Shad I didn't care if I had progressed any further or not, I wanted to go to the hospital just to get more meds. Seriously you guys, contractions are the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. We drove to the women's center again, and again they checked me into a room to monitor me for an hour. The contractions at this point were bringing out oscar worth pain noises and odd breathing methods. Shad would push down hard on my knees and I would just clench every muscle as he watched the computer screen for them to go down. My nurse felt so bad and assured me the doctor would let me stay. I was somewhere around a 2-2 1/2 at this point. Sadly, the doc said he still thought I was in very early labor and needed to go home again. I begged for more medicine and got another shot of phenergan with morphine, this time in the other cheek (Shad knew I was really in pain at this point because I NEVER voluntarily get shots). They also gave me an ambien saying it would help calm me down enough to sleep. Eh, no. I spent the night dozing 2-3 minutes between excruciating contractions. At least the ambien made me forget a lot of it?

Saturday, September 29th, 5 a.m. ish. (I started getting hazy on the times between the meds and the pain). Shad came downstairs to help me through the rest of the morning (I had ordered him to go sleep in the bedroom, no sense letting me keep him awake any longer!). I think he kept timing the contractions, but I was over it. I was losing the ability to care about much besides gripping whatever I could hold really tight through every contraction. By about 8 a.m. I couldn't take it any more and Shad could tell. He helped me get dressed and packed up and we slowly got to the car. (I was having to stop and sit on whatever was close every 3 minutes to cry out in pain..). I just remember this drive to the hospital was like what you see in movies. I was yelling for him to go faster and run through the lights, half crying, half gasping for breath. He mentioned at one point I sounded like the sad bride crying in Ever After (he was right, it was kind of funny).

Saturday, September 29th, around 10 a.m. This time they admitted me I could tell they were finally taking me seriously. Good thing because I was about to punch someone in the face if I was told to go home again. They checked me into a room, and found me to be dilated to a 5. Finally some reward for my agony! We called our families and told them baby is coming today. They came to put an IV in to start some meds before the anesthesiologist could make it in. This is the first time in my life that I a needle was a welcome sight. (Well, and the two shots from the previous visits). The nurse dug around in my wrist for a while and gave me a nice bruise before handing me off to another nurse who finally got some medicine flowing, thank goodness. 

Saturday, September 29th, about 12 p.m. Jared, my angel, my knight in shining armor (of course besides Shad) came in with my epidural. The numbing needles hardly felt like anything and I couldn't even feel the epidural going in once he gave me those. All at once from my tushy down to my toes I started tingling and going numb. Well, after it felt like a firework went off in my right leg, strange.. Seriously though, after two nights of muscle clenching contractions, this was a dream. I could have straight up kissed the guy haha. 

Saturday, September 29th, about 2 p.m. My epidural was working amazingly, my mom had arrived, I was finally comfortable and ready to get this baby boy here. They finally gave me some pitocin because I had only gotten to a 6 at this point. They were hoping that because my contractions were so intense, my body would go on it's own, but didn't they know it had taken three days to get to this point? It took from 2 o'clock to about 7 o'clock to get to a ten. Somewhere in there my epidural started wearing off on my left side and I had Jared re-juice me twice. Oh, Jared, what would I have done without you? 

Saturday, September 29th, 7 ish. Times are getting real hazy now. My nurse Ashley (she's a new one because they had shift change at 6) came in and said it's time to start pushing. She, my mom, and Shad were my team for the next hour and a half or so. Every time I had a contraction she would say one, two, three, push hard hard hard! Then count to ten and we'd do three of those in a row. By the time she said we were ready for the doctor to come, I felt like I was completely at the end of my energy limit. Finally the doctor showed up. We continued on with the same pushing routine for a while longer. Eventually the doctor gave me an ultimatum. He said I could continue to push for 40 or so minutes, and I might not tear and the baby may come out on his own OR he could do an episiotomy and it would only take another ten minutes. As much as it freaked me out, I knew I definitely couldn't push 40 more minutes or longer so I said go ahead and cut. He did and we continued to push. 

Saturday, September 29th, about 9 p.m. I was in the middle of a round of pushing and Ashley and the doctor started telling me to keep going! I couldn't believe I had it in me, but I pushed for what felt like a solid minute. I wondered if anyone else was worried that my head was going to pop off. The doctor started yelling at Ashley to get a bunch more people in the room. Our families said they heard from the waiting room, 'Neo code' and a bunch of nurses rushed in. I was confused, but couldn't do much besides keep pushing. I opened my eyes (they'd been closed from exertion) to see a nurse up on my bed shoving against my stomach with all her body weight. I finally felt a pressure release as the baby slipped out. 

Saturday, September 29th, 9:06 p.m. Tavvin Shad Webb was born. I could just see him in the doctor's lap from my position. I heard his adorable little cry immediately and loud! I watched Shad cut the cord and watched the nurses wisk him over to the little station where they checked him out. He weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz. and measured 20.5 inches long. I lay on the bed while the doctor finished with me and watched everyone else rush to Tavvin's side. I was overcome with so many emotions. Relief from 9 whole months plus the last three days of waiting for him, and love for him. I just lay there and stared at him getting all cleaned up while he cried the cutest cry.

They told me the reason for all the fuss at the end was that he had meconium in his fluid and the cord was wrapped around his neck twice! I guess they were also surprised at how big he was and he was having a hard time getting out. Luckily everything turned out to be fine and he was healthy. We decided we think he has my lips, ears, chin, and feet, and Shad's head/hair. Everything else is hard to tell now because he's so tiny. We just love him so much. When I met Shad, I was surprised that I could love someone so much. Now I am amazed that I have TWO guys I love so much!