In case you haven’t already heard, Tamara gave birth to our daughter Megan Grace last night at about 8:44pm. She’s in excellent health and Tamara is doing well. However, it was a long journey there and I thought I would share the news and the story in my own words here.
Wednesday night about 6:30, Tamara noticed that her water had broke. She had been to the doctor that day and the doctor was very clear that as soon as her water broke, she should head to the hospital within the hour. We got my mom to come over and take care of Dylan while we headed to the hospital to see what was going to happen.
We had expected that this delivery would go quite fast based on what the doctors had said, what we’d read, and just different things we had heard. However this was not going to be the case.
She was at 1cm but that’s actually about normal for someone who’s had a child before. They set her up in the room and we waited. And waited. And waited. Tamara was put on some antibiotics that she would have to receive every 4 hours. If the baby was born within that first 4 hour window, she’d have to be taken to the NICU to insure that there are no complications. We really wanted to make sure that she would be born after 12:30am so she wouldn’t be in the NICU. Well, 12:30 came, another round of antibiotics were given and still no baby.About 2am came along and Tamara still was not having any contractions of any kind. We started to ask about getting the labour started using Pitocin which is commonly used to induce labour.
The problem was that there was a nursing shortage and if they gave her the drugs to induce, and she went into full on labour, they’d have no nurses to run the room. So we waited more. And more. And more. Another round of antibiotics. Another round.
At around 1ish yesterday afternoon, they gave her the pit drip. She started to dialate a bit but it was going really slow. As the day progressed, the contractions started. They were very small at first but then they started to kick in.
Somewhere around 7ish or 8ish last night, Tamara was becoming uncomfortable and asked for something to help with the pain. She did not get an epidural but simple asked for something to take the edge off. They gave her a shot of Fentanyl which seemed to help her. The nurse said that it might help her to relax and bring on more intense labour.Well, it certainly did.
I think they gave her the shot around 8 and within 15-20 minutes, the good labour started. She only had about 4 or 5 real good pushes and Megan was born.
We had decided that for this baby, we did not want anyone else in the room. So when Megan was born, they grabbed the baby and put her right on Tamara’s chest and she got to hold her for the first time. She stayed there for quite a while and all was good. Tamara had to have a stitch or two and there was a very minor complication with bleeding but all was settled. Eventually, Tamara tried to feed her and for a baby only about 20 minutes old, she sure as hell knew how to eat. She fed well and then was introduced to her grandparents.
From start to finish, 27.5 hours later, Tamara was in her room, and I headed home. Megan was taken to the neonatal ICU and would remain there over night. There were not complications but because the baby was born more than 18 hours after Tamara’s water broke, they wanted to keep her under observation. We are hoping they will release her to Tamara’s room today.
So, as of right now, we’re all good. I got some much needed sleep as I hope Tamara did as well. I’ll be leaving to go see her soon. Pictures and video will be posted within a day or so and before you know it, she’ll be home.
Please feel free to visit her at the hospital. I’m sure she would love to see you.
Lastly, since we kept the name under wraps for so long, it’s kind of nice to change the website name to what it was supposed to be all along. Megan’s World. Keep posted here for updates on Megan’s progress.
www.megansworld.ca
Pulled from Megan's blog. Read the original post here
