Gwenyth Ann Tingey

Don't mind the bathroom picture, this was about a week before Gwen was born, I was ready to POP!!

I wanted to take a little bit of time and write my experiences from the day Baby Gwenyth was born. Right now I am working at Zion's Bank, and I decided that in order to spend as much time with my new baby as possible I was going to work up until the day she was born, or my due date whichever came first. My due date was Oct 3 and I had decided that if she hadn't come by then, then my Doctor was going to induce me. I was scheduled to work on Sat the 1st, but using my brain, I convinced someone to trade me for the week before just because it was so close to my due date. You never know what could happen, babies come when they want to! Luckily for the girl I was scheduled to work with, I had traded so she didn't end up spending half the day alone.

I ran a few errands on Saturday morning. I decided it would be a good idea to go grocery shopping and stock the fridge up for monday. As I was walking the isles I had a few contractions here and there but didn't really think anything of them because they were inconsistent. After grocery shopping I decided to get a car wash because my car was in desperate need of one, and Nixon loves going through them. As we were going through the car wash the contractions got steadily worse.

It was around 1:00 and I remembered that Nixon hadn't eaten lunch yet. I went to the closest McDonald's and was in the Drive Thru line waiting to order. At this time the contractions were very steady and got extremely painful. I was in line forever, seriously how many people have to go to McDonald's at 1:00pm. While waiting in line I am debating whether or not to get food for myself. I kept thinking that I should because I hadn't eaten anything all day, but I just did not feel like eating anything still. After getting Nixon's Happy Meal I decided it was time to call Blake and let him know to head home from work. After I call him, I call my Mom and Mother in Law and let them know we were heading to the hospital. I get home, and right after I get home one of Blake's Aunts show up right behind me. Patrice was a life saver for me that day and put away all my groceries so I could finish packing my bag. She also took care of Nixon for me until my mom was able to get him.

Blake and I get to the hospital at about 2:00 and get all checked in. The nurse asks me a whole bunch of questions, one of them was how far dialated I was at my last Dr. visit. Three days before that I was only dialated 1 cm. After the nurse checked me I was still only dialated to a 1, but I was definately having contractions. She told me I had two options, she could call the Dr. and he would most likely send me home because I wasn't progressing, or we could wait an hour and see if there were any changes after that. I decided to wait an hour because I was in so much pain, and I was going to refuse to go home. As I was waiting for the hour to pass, Corrie (Blake's Mom) and Tauna (his sister) were there cheering me on. Tauna was my own personal Cheerleader and would get so excited when she noticed me having a contraction on the computer monitor. She would say "come on get closer and bigger." I kept telling her that I was glad someone was enjoying my pain because it wasn't very fun for me.

When the nurse came back to check me an hour later I had dialated 4 cm. She told me that she wasn't going to send me home. This is also about the time that we were given the news that my Dr. was out of town, and so the on call Dr. would be delivering the baby. I was ok with this, but a little bit sad because he was the one that delivered Nixon.

Well things got underway and she started getting me hooked up to an IV and everything. After the 4th try she finally got my IV in and then went to get the anesthesiologist to do my epidural. At this point I was in so much pain I had to force myself not to cry, and I just about broke Blake's hand from squeezing so hard. After what seemed forever she finally got there with the stuff to get me numb. After doing it twice, I was finally starting to get a tiny amount of relief. I just laid down to try and get comfortable when the nurse decided to check my progress again, and in the process she broke my water, and she said I was fully dilated and ready to push. She called the Dr in and the rest of the nurses came rushing and within minutes little Gwenyth was here. After Gwen was born, the nurse apologized for trying to send me home, she said it wasn't very often that a birth went from 1 cm dilation to a 10 in a matter of 2 hours.

Gwen was born at 4:46 PM, weighed 7 lbs 10 oz and was 21 inches long. I was only in labor for a matter of 3 hrs. After she was born, the nurse apologized for trying to send me home. She has been such a good baby from the get go. She hardly cried, even right after she was born. She really only started screaming a few seconds after she got her first shots.

Gwen is such a sweet tempered baby. She is definately going to keep my on my toes because she was trying to hold her head up all by herself within a matter of seconds from delivery. She is also a very good sleeper, the first night in the hospital I sent her to the nursery around 11:00pm so I could get some sleep. When I woke up at 7:00am and hadn't seen her during the night I was really worried. Luckily within a few minutes the nurse brought her in to eat. The nurse said she just slept the whole night and had just woken up and wanted to eat.

We are so blessed to have our sweet Gweny in our lives.