THE Story.

I need to write this out before I forget!!!

We got to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center at 8:00 am on Friday Sept. 28 for my social induction. We decided to induce since I live so far from the hospital. Also because my Dr. is awesome and understood about when my mom could be here and how we needed to get baby here as soon as possible since we're moving soon.

It was a very hot day already and the forcast was calling for record highs. I met my nurse, Jillian, and got changed into my gown. The nurse got us all settled and told us to hang out for a little while until she got directions from Dr. Goodrich. I got to eat breakfast and watch some TV before she came back in and told us that the Dr. told her to check me and then we'd see where to go from there. She checked and I was only dilated about 3 cm, which was disappointing. Dr. Goodrich told her to start me on Pitocin.

The nurse tried to put in my IV and my veins weren't cooperating, she said they were rolling around. She got a good vein on the second poke though and I started to get my Pitocin. The nurse came back every half hour to up the dose. For some strange reason I actually started having less contractions then I was having when I had first arrived. She kept upping my dose and nothing was happening. This went on for hours, and Jake and I were both getting very frusterated. We started to wonder if maybe we were trying to push him out too early and maybe he just didn't want to come out yet.

My Dr. came in at about 3:30 which surprised me since she had told me she wasn't working the weekend. She checked me and told me I was only dialated to a 4. She gave me 2 options at that point. She told us we could go home and wait a few days and then we'd try again or she could break my water. If she broke my water then we'd have a time limit. We'd basically have about 12 hours to get him out before they'd have to give me a c-section. I thought about going home still pregnant, coming back another day and getting the IV again...that didn't sound like fun. So I told her to go ahead and break my water. She did so and then she left.

I called my mom and gave her an update. Then I went to the bathroom and while I was in there I had my first STRONG contraction. I thought "Wow, that was weird" but I didn't think much about it. Well by the time I was able to get back to my bed I had had a couple more and they hurt! I had started getting Pitocin at 10:00 and they had been upping my dose every half hour. By this point it was 4:00 so I was getting a pretty high dose and it was making my contractions really intense. And I could tell!

Jake was on the phone with his Dad and I told him, jokingly, that I wanted my epidural now, looking back I realize that I really should have gotten it at that point. I waited about another half hour to an hour. I don't really know what I was waiting for, it's not like the pain was going to get any better, but I had said before that I wanted to try to do it naturally if I could so I was trying to be strong. At that point the pain was really unbearable though. I was having contractions exactly every 2 minutes.

I called my nurse and she could tell the second she walked in since every time she had walked into my room up to that point I had been all smiles. This time I was in tears and she asked me what I wanted to do. I told her to call the anesthisiologist. It took him about 45 mintues to get there and get all set up. By this point I thought I was going to die, seriously. I don't know how people have children naturally.

The anesthisiologist was really nice, he was trying to hurry for my sake but he could only go so fast. He poked me and tried to get the catheter in but it just wouldn't go. He played around with it for what seemed like forever. All this time I was contracting and it was so painful. I was literally dripping with sweat which made his job even harder because his little plastic wrap wouldn't stick to my back. He kept asking me if it felt like he was off to the left or right, he just couldn't get it in. So he pulled the needle out and told me he was going to try in a different spot. I was a little surprised because I thought an epidural had to be in a very specific one spot. He put it up a lot higher, almost to my bra strap line. I tried to hold so still because I didn't want to have to get poked again, and he got it in.

They started the medicince and he stayed in the room with me for a while to make sure it started working. Well it did, as much as it could. I still didn't get that awesome epidural that everyone always describes, where they couldn't feel a thing. I could still feel a lot of pain in my butt, which is weird. The anesthisiologist told me that if they baby was on my pelvic bone though that there wasn't much they could do about it, there wasn't any way he could manage that pain.

The epidural did definitely take the edge off though. I got the little button, and they told me I could push it to administer more medicine every 10 minutes. After they put in my catheter I could feel that so I was pushing it every 10 minutes on the dot. Well the stupid machine got mad at me and an alarm went off. I was mad, why did they tell me I could push it every 10 minutes if I couldn't? After that the machine locked and it didn't give me any more medicine for an hour, ugh.

After I got the epidural and got all settled the nurse checked me again and I was dialted 7-8 cm. I had dialated from a 4 to a 7-8 during all that pain, so at least it wasn't for nothing. I can't remember exactly but I think that was at about 6:30 or 7:00.

The pain kept getting worse and worse and then I started to feel the pressure. I called my nurse, who was a new girl by this point, Natalie. I told her I felt like I needed to push so she checked me and I was at a 9. She left and came back with the exciting stuff like the bassinet and the light for the Dr. The scissors and clamp for the cord. I knew it was getting close but I had a hard time feeling happy because I was in lots of pain. She checked me again after she got everything set up and I was very close to a 10, she said I just had a little flap left. I told her I didn't know how many more contractions I could hold back pushing so she went to get the Dr.

By the time my Dr. came in I was ready, the little flap was gone. Now the fun part, haha. I ended up pushing for about 40 minutes. I kept asking Jake if he could see his head, because I remember him telling me he could see Chels' head and it wasn't long after that that she came out. He kept having to tell me no which was hard to hear but I kept pushing. Finally I could feel him crowing and then there was no stopping me. Dr. Goodrich kept telling me "If you aren't feeling a contraction just rest and wait until the next one" but I was determined at that point.

Dean Marriner was born at 8:29 pm. He came out crying and white. They set him on my chest and I tried really hard to pay attention to what was happening since I didn't with Chels. I was so exhausted by the time Chels came out that I just collapsed. He cried for a long time, really loudly. He just kept crying and crying. It was the most pathetic, but the cutest cry I had ever heard. Jake cut his cord. They cleaned him up and weighed him. I thought he looked smaller then Chels had been but he was 6 oz bigger. He weighed in at 7 lb 5 oz and he was 20 in. tall.

We stayed in the room for a while they did all his checks. I got all stitched up and was able to rest a little. Jake left to go get us some dinner since we were both starving. When he came back they were ready to move me down a floor to the mother and baby unit. They packed up all our stuff and started moving us down. On the way my nurse told me, "We're going to a private room on floor 2" well when we got there the curtain was drawn and I could see another bassinet on the other side. I asked "Is there someone over there?" and the nurse just said "Yes, I'm sooo sorry, I thought you were getting a private room." Apparently everyone in a 50 mile radius of San Luis Obispo decided to have their babies last weekend and the hospital was packed. I had to share a room...grrr. It was Germany all over again. I was pretty upset. I didn't eat my dinner and they were telling Jake he could only stay for a few minutes. I was so mad, I was all pumped for him to get to stay with me and help me but they made him leave. There was nothing we could do about it.

That first night wasn't so bad. The nurse actually came and got the baby for a couple hours and I slept, it was nice. My roomate was a royal witch though. She was so mean to her husband and children when they came to visit. She had nothing good to say about anyone when her mom got there and they just sat there and gossiped the whole time. Why do I always get these weird roomates?!?!

The next day we couldn't decide what to do. I didn't know when they were letting me go home so we didn't know whether Jake should bring my mom and Chels that day or wait until Sunday. We decided to get them a hotel room in SLO and they came up with him. Well when they got to the hospital the on-call Dr. finally came to check on me and he cleared me to go home that day. So we didn't end up using the hotel and I got to go home less then 24 hours after I had the baby.

All in all it went pretty fast, if you don't count the time where nothing was happening. After the broke my water is only took 4 1/2 hours to get him here. It was so painful though, I was really hoping that it wouldn't be as painful as Chels' but it was, it was just shorter. I told Jake, "No more kids" but I guess we'll see. My recovery has been 100x better then with Chels. I'm getting around so much better and I'm not as sore as I was with her (I think it's because his head his smaller then her's was). My mom and Jake are being wonderful and I'm just getting to relax. I had two people at the grocery store ask me "When the baby is due" yesterday, so I guess I still look pregnant, oh well! Give me a couple weeks people!!!

Chels is being so good, she's very soft with him and she wants to hold him about 1000 times a day, but she only holds him for about 3 seconds, haha. Overall she's pretty indifferent about him, which I suspected she would be. We took her to the store with us yesterday and we were almost done and leaving before she said "Where's the baby?" (he was at home with my mom).

So far Marriner is doing great. We've had 2 tough nights and 1 good one. We love him so much, he is the cutest little guy I've ever seen. We have his first Dr.'s appt. today and then we should be able to get the referral for his circumcision, which will be so sad. We've taken some more pics that I will post soon, I need to remember to take lots more pictures then I have been taking though.

Thanks for all the well wishes and thoughts and prayers, I have the best family and friends!