Dan and Allyx: Tuck August Moedl

So to be honest, I kind of forgot about my blog. I made a goal to post more once I had the baby, and then he came and I just forgot that it even existed. I would say it is thanks to instagram, because that is where I pretty much post daily. But I have decided it is important to keep a blog as a kind of journal. I have always been terrible at that, but I really want to be better so that there is a record of our lives for our kids and so on to read. So here is to renewing my goal of blogging.

Since it has been a while, I think this post will be dedicated to Tuck's birth story. I want it for my records and really don't want to forget it. So here goes. I was pregnant for 9 months with Tuck. That is pretty standard since I'm not an elephant or anything. I enjoyed being pregnant. I never got too sick and only mildly uncomfortable. That changed, however, near the end. Those last 2 weeks, or probably even that last month of being pregnant is sort of torture. By that point we had everything ready for our little man and it was simply a waiting game. I was going to the doctor weekly and even time I went in I was 1.5 cm dialated and 90% effaced. I thought for sure I must be close but it never actually changed. So I scheduled my induction for a week after my due date. My due date came and went and contractions started but never were consistent enough to warrant a hospital visit. But then Dec. 30th came and it was time to go to the hospital.

I woke up at 5 in the morning waiting for the hospital to call and tell me what time to come in. They did, and said to be there by 7. I showered, finished packing us and we left. I have never been more scared and excited for anything. We got to the hospital and I got all hooked up to the machines. The nurses started me on the petocin to force me into labor. They told me at the point I could have my epidural whenever I wanted. I decided to wait until the contractions were too painful to handle, and kind of set my self a goal of 10am. Turns out, the petocin makes you go into labor quick and the contractions were super strong super fast. I no longer wanted to wait, and at about 9:15 was asking for the epidural. However, the anesthesiologist wasn't at the hospital yet so they had to call him and I ended up waiting til after 10 anyway. Which sucked. I mean more power to those women who want to labor naturally but I am not one of them. I am grateful for modern medicine that allows me to experience child birth with out the intense horrible pain of child birth. Anyway, I got my epidural and was feeling much better and then was just hoping to have my baby soon. I continued to dilate slowly but surely. I don't exactly remember but I would say I was at about 8 cm 10 hours later. I thought for sure baby would be coming soon but he was being stubborn. During this time, my epidural wore off and I had to get another dose shot through my IV. The family was patiently waiting for news that baby was here but we weren't able to give it to them. The next few hours consisted of my epidural wearing off over and over and only progressing to a 9. After about 18 hours of labor, the nurse told me if I didn't progress any further in the next hour I would need to have a C section. So we waited out the next hour and still nothing happened. My doctor came in and said we could try waiting one more hour to see if I get to a 10. I agreed. At this point I was already pretty tired because I couldn't sleep very well due to my epidural only working really well on one side. Dan was awesome and stayed up with me, keeping me company. The hour passed and I still was only at about a 9.5cm. My doctor came and talked to me and said we could do a c section or I could try pushing him out anyway even though I wasn't fully dilated. I decided I wanted to push.

Let me preface this with something. My sisters Erin and Tamara both told me that they only had to push once or twice with their babies before they were out. I was fully expecting this to be the case with me. What I was not expecting was to be pushing continuously for almost 3 hours straight. It was exhausting and scary. I remember thinking over and over, "he's never coming!". I even told the doctor that I didn't think he would ever come. I also kept asking the doc, "do you see him?!" and he kept saying, "I'm sure I will soon!". This wasn't reassuring. After about 2 and half hours I started crying. I kept pushing but I started crying because I was convinced I would never have a baby. I know that is silly but at this point it had been 23 hours of labor and I was so tired and a little delirious. But that's when my doctor told me my baby was almost here. A few minutes later I heard him crying and saw his sweet little face.

I was still crying but now it was because he was here and my whole world had changed. It's amazing how that sweet little baby changes absolutely everything in those few seconds. They laid him on my tummy and he looked at me with the most awake, alert eyes ever. It was magical. He was 8 lbs 12 oz (he was a giant baby) and 21.5 inches long. He had dark hair and the biggest eyes ever. He was perfect. After they cleaned him off, Dan and I just held him and laughed/cried and couldn't believe we actually made a perfect little human. Dan took him and went with the nurses to give him a bath and get some tests done. I went down to the recovery room and just sobbed. Seriously it was weird and a little pathetic but I just cried and cried because I was so happy and also insanely tired.

They had to run a bunch of tests on the baby because I ended up getting a fever during the labor and that often can lead to an infection in the baby. The results came back a little bit weird so they admitted our baby to the NICU and said he had to be there for 48 hours and then they would run the tests again. This broke my heart that my brand new baby couldn't be in the room with me. But I was eternally grateful again for modern medicine where they could take him and get him feeling better. They put an IV in his head (worst ever) and put him under the lights. This was so hard for me to not be with him, but also gave me the chance to just sleep for a few hours and get back to normal again. Then I went to the NICU to feed him and cuddle him all day every day until they ran the tests again. He was all better and we were able to take him home. That was such a blessing because I don't think I could have handled leaving the hospital without him! The day before we left we finally decided on a name for him. Tuck August Moedl. He is our new best friend and is the best thing that has ever happened to us. It's amazing how much we love this little turd and how much closer it has brought us to each other and to our Heavenly Father. We are SOOO happy!!!!!