Introducing Wrenn Dallin Tate!

So this post is a loooong time coming, so sorry its probably all old news. As you probably all know we had our baby! Wrenn was born on April 29th 2014 at 1:39pm he was 7lbs 12oz and 20 inches long; a happy, healthy baby boy. If you want to skip his birth story there are a bunch of adorable photos of him at the end of this post.

A week before my due date (April 30th) I began operation get baby out. Which was essentially I went for a decent long walk everyday and bounced on a birth ball while I was at home. As my due date came closer and closer I began to fear my tactics weren't working and that the baby would stubbornly come in May. Which I did not want because I feel May is already crowded with Nathan and I's anniversary, Mothers day, my birthday, my moms birthday, and my nephews as well.

On Sunday the 27th I began to have an increase in hope that maybe this baby would come soon. I was having contractions a little more than usual, and a little stronger than I was used to. Not regular though, so I was skeptical. That night before we went to bed I was really hopeful that I would go into labor that night so we could go out to eat for breakfast the next morning. Nathan and I had made a deal that when I went into labor we would go out to eat to stock up on calories/energy for the ordeal ahead. So I had my fingers crossed, I was REALLY craving french toast. I was having trouble sleeping because I wanted french toast so bad. Last minute crazy pregnant lady craving? Maybe.

Well my body must have known how much I wanted that french toast because at 3am I was woken up by a contraction. It was definitely more noticeable and I felt another one about 20 mins later. The rest of the morning Nathan and I tried to sleep but were a little anxious at the prospect of being in labor that it wasn't very good sleep, and I finally gave up sleeping about 7am. At that point I was having contractions about 15 minutes apart and I was pretty sure this was labor starting. It wasn't very painful though and I naively thought that maybe it was going to be easy.

I gave my parents a call about 8:30am to let them know I thought I was going into labor so if they wanted to drive out they could. They sadly informed me due to work they couldn't start driving out that day, but would leave first thing tomorrow.

Well as you probably guessed we then went out to eat breakfast and I got my french toast. While at the restaurant Nathan happily told the waitress that we were in labor. After breakfast we went for a long walk hoping we could speed up labor. It was about 10:30am when we finished our walk and I was about 11 minutes apart.

Then Nathan decided he should get some work done, and I decided I should try and take a nap. A friend also visited around then to drop off a gift for the baby. The day seemed to pass slowly as my contractions got steadily stronger and more frequent. About 5pm it began to "get real" my contractions were like 6 minutes apart and 40 seconds long. They were starting to be decently painful and I was beginning to need to start to breathe through them. This is where I felt labor truly began.

To distract me we went to the grocery store to stalk up on frozen foods to get us through the recovery period after delivery. It was a little awkward to have to pause in the middle of the aisle and hold onto Nathan and breathe every 5 minutes or so. We then went home and watched some TV. Nathan tried to get me to eat some food, but nothing sounded good and I was a little nauseous. We also decided to go for another walk to see if we could get my contractions longer and more frequent.

It was a long few hours because my midwife had told us to not come into the hospital until we were 3 minutes apart, contractions a minute long for 1 hour. It was starting to get late and we began to realize that our baby was not going to be here on the 28th. I was beginning to get discouraged as we called the midwife and she told us to try and get some sleep. How was I supposed to sleep with waves of pain coming every few minutes? We tried though and neither of us were really able to sleep. My contractions were very frustrating. I would have contractions for a time that were a minute long and 5 minutes apart then it would switch over to contractions that were 3 minutes apart and only 30 seconds, but all of them strong and painful.

About 3 in morning I could not stand being in our apartment any longer. I just wanted to go to the hospital. I had high hopes that their jetted tub would work miracles in making my contractions easier. So we went and checked in to the hospital. The midwife checked me and I was completely effaced but only 3 cm. Nathan and I were both exhausted and the midwife suggested some pain medication so we could sleep, but I wasn't quite ready to give up on having our baby naturally. So we went to the tub for about 2 hours. It wasn't magical. The contractions were still very much there, and Nathan and I's sleep deprivation was very taxing. Nathan was so sweet as he stayed awake with me and held my hand, or put his hand out to catch my head, so it didn't hit the tub as I was falling asleep between contractions.

It was about 6am and I was at my limit. Nathan and I were so tired. I just wanted to sleep. So I decided that I was okay with getting an epidural so Nathan and I could get some rest. So we let the nurse know and called my sister, so she could relieve Nathan and he could some rest. The epidural took a long time coming and I didn't actually receive it till about 8:30am.

Then it came, and I have to say that the epidural was magical. It wasn't painful to get, and it started working right away. The power the contractions had over me just went away. I was 5cm's apart when I got it, and the rest of labor seemed to fly by in a flash of me sleeping, and being woken by nurses to have me position myself to help baby and labor. Then my water broke and like an hour later they woke me up and told me it was baby time.

Then like 20 minutes later and a few pushes our beautiful baby was finally here. Now I'm going to flood this blog with baby photos!

This is after they told us it was baby time. We decided to take one last pic of me pregnant. I was nervous and excited.

Then he was here :)

Happy grandparents!

My sweet guy.

Then we left the hospital. I feel bad I didn't get a photo of the three of us at the hospital, or take more photos in general at the hospital, but honestly I was exhausted... moving on!

So we took our little guy home and the next couple weeks were a blur of nursing, watching shows, laying around in bed, waiting for my body to heal, middle of the night feeding parties, people visiting, sleeping baby, tiny baby.

It was fun I wish I had taken more photos, once again, and wrote down what it was like a little more. Wrenn was so sweet and small, and seemed so fragile. Here are the photos I do have of this tiny baby period.

 The like one time he actually sucked on his pacifier...

 Wrenn's first non-doctor related outing... to a blanket in our backyard.

Sleeping with daddy :).

 I used to turn on music and dance with him and he would calm down.

The like one time he took a bottle haha.

 Naked time!

The good old days when Wrenn would sleep on our laps.

:)

So for the first month I took a lot of smart phone pictures because I was too exhausted to find my camera. Here are a few of those no in any particular order unfortunately...

 First hints of a smile.

 Not sure why Nathan's mouth looks white hmm..

 First bath :)

 I kind of miss the crossed eyes.

 Turtle baby

 He's like why are you taking pictures of me in my diaper... weirdo

Well that's our baby I will tell you more about him and how much fun he has been these last few months in another post. I will also tell you about other adventures going on in our lives which lets just say isn't limited to a few. ;) 

Until next time and probably soon!