We have a little baby boy! Peter George Robert Tennessen was born on 8/19/2011 at 02:54 am. He's 5 lbs 6.8 oz at 38 weeks, and was born by Cesarian section after a darn good try at inducing a vaginal birth. We definitely got the full labor and delivery experience.
I've been measuring small in my belly growth since 34 weeks, and so we've had extra monitoring to see if Baby has been growing well, and the first ultrasound 3 weeks ago showed a smaller baby than expected, so they decided to do a repeat ultrasound at 38 weeks.
We went in for the repeat ultrasound Thursday morning (yesterday) and were told to stick around a little while longer, and then a poor OB resident who thought we knew what was going on popped by and said "Laura, your room is ready for your induction." WHOA! Surprise! We chatted with the docs and it turns out our little one hadn't grown much since the last ultrasound, and there was some evidence that the placenta and umbilical cord weren't getting nutrition to Baby.
So, we did some inducing of labor. We tried to just thin out my cervix, but the medicine made me contract a lot, but without much changing of my cervix. We did about 8 hours of pretty hard labor with our fantastic doula, and the last 1-2 hours the contractions were too close together, right on top of another, and causing some stress to the baby. Neither me nor baby enjoyed the epidural very much, and so it was decided to do a C-section to get Baby out safe. We had a great labor and delivery experience with a lot of nurses and staff that I knew from residency, and I feel that this birth was just exactly what I wanted (plus a lot more :) )
And so, I got to follow along in my head as my favorite surgeon did the C-section, and that was incredibly surreal. Peter was born and did great right away. Jason has been an amazing dad and partner throughout, and I am doing just fine. I think we're both still a little astounded at where we are now compared to yesterday, but we are so glad we have the desired end result-- a healthy family!
Jason's parents are here (for a planned pre-baby vacation... which changed into a baby-vacation!) and my parents are flying out for 2 days tomorrow... then they'll come back in 2 weeks. We feel so fortunate.
I know everyone is dying for pictures-- we can't synch the camera with the computer we have at the hospital, so check back in a day or two.
We're not going to be taking visitors at the hospital for now (we're focusing on catching up on sleep and strength right now), but we'd love to have folks at the house starting on Monday, in the evenings, from 6 pm to 8 pm. Or just call and we'll figure something out.
We do have a meal calendar to sign up for if you are so inspired-- let me know if you're interested! We'll take all the help we can get. :)
Love you all!
