Tina Marie Grant was born on October 13, 2011. She arrived at 10:20pm, was 7lbs 0 oz, and 21 inches long.
We woke up at 5:30am Thursday morning, got dressed grabbed Michelle and headed down to the hospital. We stopped at Chick-fil-A for some breakfast on the way. When we got to the hospital we found out that they were doing construction in the labor and delivery wing so we had to take the longest way possible to get to our room. The nurses finally got me all hooked up and strapped down by 7:30am. (If you've ever had a baby you know that there are a million little strappy-thingys that go around you stomach, arm. wrist... everywhere!) I had a regular nurse and an intern who were both going to be "helping" me. The nurse was great! The intern... not so much. She was putting my IV in and couldn't find the vein so she ended up sticking me 4 times before the regular nurse came over and got it on the first try. Needless to say my arm had a very pretty blue and purple area for the next few days. Dr. Mos came in to check on me almost right away and made sure that they started pitocin immediately (they didn't get that message when I was having Michelle and wasted a few hours before giving it to me). She was also really nice and told the nurses to give me whatever pain meds I wanted as soon as I wanted them. This made me do a little happy dance! My dad and Daniel came up around noon and took Michelle home for a nap. Bryan was trying to be supportive by not eating as long as I couldn't eat, but as soon as the offer of subway was made he caved in! Daniel was really great and got him some lunch and took care of Michelle for a good part of the rest of the day. Anyway, we hung out and did the whole labor and contractions thing (SO fun...not) for a few hours and decided that an epidural was in order around 3:00pm. At this point I was only 4 cm dilated, but it had been a long day so far. Unfortunately my anesthesiology sucked big time and ended up making my already long day even longer. To make a long story short the guy stuck me 7 times, hitting my sciatic nerve 4 times and left my back bruised and swollen. I didn't even know your back could be swollen!! The worst part is, even after he got the needle placed right, he didn't give me a high enough dosage so I could still feel every contraction, but couldn't feel my legs. And when I called him back in (about an hour later) to tell him it wasn't working, he tried to argue with me and tell me that I just didn't know what it was supposed to feel like. SERIOUSLY?! Bryan was a good husband though and stepped in. After Bryan said something that guy upped the drugs. I labored for a while longer and around 7 Dr. Mos came in and checked me again to find that I was only dilated to a 6... not cool. At that point we had the "c-section is a possibility" talk. She said that She would give me until 10:00 and then she would check me again. If I wasn't fully dilated by that time then we would start prep for a c-section. This is also about the time that my epidural started to wear off again. So now I was super tired, stressed, and in pain. My family came to visit around 9:30pm. My mom kept asking me if I wanted a blessing, and I kept refusing. My thinking was that blessings are meant to heal and comfort... and what I really needed was for my body to get in gear and get this baby out! Eventually my brother, Daniel, told me that if I wasn't going to let them give me a blessing that we should at least say a prayer. So Daniel prayed for me to have a good, natural delivery. After they left I got another dose of drugs and then, literally 30 minutes after Daniel's prayer, I was fully dilated and pushing! By 10:20 Tina was here and we were a family of four!
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