Teeny Tiny Tanner

Well, here we are!  Tonight (Thursday) at midnight I was supposed to go in to get induced but sometimes things change!  There were several things going on the last few weeks that caused me plenty of anxiety over this baby/labor/delivery and I really tried to get my doctor to let me go before 39 weeks.  The first three kids I always wanted to just go on my own.  After having Tucker come so fast though in the middle of the night (2 hour labor), plus the convenience of planning as far as getting back to Haiti goes, I had decided pretty early on that I wanted to just get induced at 39 weeks rather than wait around for the unknown arrival time.  By the time I was 36 weeks, my body was already showing plenty of signs that things were set to go into motion at a very rapid pace.  And probably earlier than expected but not necessarily.  My blood pressure was too high and my platelets were too low and everything hurt all the time.  I walked like I was 88 instead of 38!  Plus knowing that it would probably be really quick again and we live 45 minutes from the hospital....... all of that combined caused some crazy anxiety that I have never really experienced before.  But my doctor, though I love her bedside manner and the confidence she has in what she does, she wouldn't let me go earlier than 39 weeks without a strong medical reason.

However, last Friday, at 38 weeks, I started feeling contractions about once an hour in the early afternoon.  Nothing crazy but definitely notable.  As the evening wore on they continued and started increasing in frequency, but not really in length or how strong they were.  Either way, I was pretty uncomfortable.  And so scared to go to sleep!  I laid awake until about 2 in the morning waiting and timing and counting and the jolted awake at 3:00 thinking things were really happening.  They weren't.  But that happened two more times until a little after 5:00 when I told Danny "This is dumb.  Let's just call your mom and go in, even though there's a good chance they'll send me home."  I knew it was likely just Braxton Hicks because of how irregular things were, but at the same time, they never stopped no matter how I laid or sat or stood or walked.

It was quite a bit different from the last trip into the hospital to have a baby!  Rather than moaning and groaning and crawling my way into triage, I was talking and nervous laughing and totally coherent.  They hooked me up to the monitor and could see that something was going on but they couldn't really call it labor.  The rounding physician came in and said she hoped my BP was juuuusst a little too high:)  She said she didn't want to send me home but needed to find a good enough reason to let me stay.  So basically all the things that I had been worrying about finally got put to good use and I was able to be admitted.  Once I knew we were staying and were going to have this baby, my anxiety just dropped.  Not completely, mind you, because going through labor isn't necessarily fun and games no matter how you look at it!

So off we went to the delivery room, getting all the goods like an epidural and a slow pitocin drip.  They were so very gracious and did my fluids right away, let us order breakfast while those were going, and THEN start the pitocin.  And they didn't even make me wait until I had a good strong labor pattern before they called the anesthesiologist.  It was a dream come true!  Until it wasn't.  All of a sudden kinda out of nowhere, the epidural was NOT working.  And I was already almost to transition by that point so things got real uncomfortable real quick.  That's when Kevin came into the picture.

Kevin is that peanut shaped ball sitting next to Danny on the couch.  They call him Kevin because they said he looks like a minion:)  My nurse was so sweet.  She wasn't a new nurse but she was new to labor and delivery.  She asked me if I wanted to use the peanut but the way she was talking I thought she meant I was out of luck and would need to just get out of bed and sit on the peanut and do my best to finish strong.  I asked if we could just call anesthesia first to see if there was anything we could do.  But then a different nurse came in who was just as sweet but got right down to business.  She re-positioned me and got me all snuggled up with Kevin and soon enough that blessed epidural drip was once again finding it's way to all the right places.  Oh it was such sweet relief!  It also really got things moving and  within another 30 minutes or so it was time to meet our baby!  And find out once and for all that it was indeed a boy!

After clean up and recovery it was off to post partum to get settled in for awhile and get to know our sweet little Tanner.  He's our smallest baby, weighing in at 6 lbs 7 oz.  After the other boys being 8.5 and 8.1 he was just so little!  Hence the name Teeny Tiny Tanner.

The tech gave him a mohawk after his bath:)

So sweet and snuggly!  His bilirubin was a little high and we had to wait around longer than expected so they could retest him on Monday but he passed the second time!

All ready to go!  There's just really not much difference between carrying an empty car seat and carrying one with him in it.

Aaaannnnnd cue the tears here.  This is always the point I've started to get emotional and have my post partum hormones kick in.  Throw in the fact that as far as we are concerned this is our last go round and it hit hard right then!  I told my doctor this was it and she laughed and said she's heard that before!!

The big kids were well taken care of while we were in the hospital!  They had lots of fun family time and I'm not sure they really missed us!

But they're all big fans of Tanner already- even Tucker loves to give him kisses!  Or maybe I should say so far instead of already.  Reality of what a new baby actually means probably hasn't actually set in for them.  But we are glad to be home and ready(ish) to figure out life with four kiddos.

Danny asked me how I felt about everything and I said I just had such a big feeling of thankfulness.  Thankful for a healthy baby who is here safe.  I know it ends differently for so many people.

Praise God for our sweet baby who was knit together in his mother's womb and is fearfully and wonderfully made!