My second baby was due to be born November 15th. I had heard that a woman's smallest baby is always her first and so I begged my Dr. to induce me early since my first baby was over 9 pounds! I did not want to have another huge baby. No sir not me! So we set my induction date for November 8th. It was a pretty good day to do it because it was a Friday and Kefford would be more available over the weekend to help and be with me. The only downside about it was that it was MY birthday. I was not sure how I felt about that but I wanted the baby out as soon as possible so I went with it. My Dr. said that he would try to get me in on the 7th but after waiting a couple of hours for his phone call he said that the hospital was too full and they would not admit me if I was not in actual labor. So I had to wait one more day. I did get a phone call the night before from the labor and delivery floor, they needed to ask a bunch of questions for my admittance the next day. The guy who I talked to on the phone sounded sooo gay and that kind of made me laugh.
So Kefford and I woke up early the morning of the 8th and went into the hospital. After I was checked in and had changed into the nightgown I was talking to my delivery nurse and she asked if I had gotten a phone call with the pre-check in information. I told her that I did talk to a guy the night before. Which was when she told me that they had no guy working on that floor. Ha! I was kind of embarrassed, it turned out it was a older lady with a smokers voice. OOPS! Oh well. :0)
So after being checked in and all that jazz Dr. Werdel came in, broke my water and told me to start walking. I walked up and down those halls for what seemed like FOREVER, but it was only about 3hours or so. Walking around did not do anything for me and so around noonish they hooked me up to the pitocin and that when things started to get good. I started to get contractions and I suffered with those until I didn't want to suffer anymore and I asked for my epidural.
The anesthesiologist came in and had me lay on my side so that she could do her thing. She started to put the needle in right when I had a contraction and so I kind of flinched a little. She said "uh oh" and then told me to hold still. Uh Oh is not a word you want to hear when a huge needle is being inserted into your back! She finished her job and had me sit up to see if I was going to have a spinal headache which would indicate that a bubble got into my back when I flinched. I was fine and so all was good. This epidural when it took affect completely numbed me from the waist down. That was an odd thing to have people have to move your legs for you and to watch your legs being moved around and not feeling them. So very weird!
Finally it was time to start pushing. I was asked if it would be OK if an intern came in to watch my delivery. By that time I did not care who came in to watch I was past the modesty issue. At one point, after my epidural, I was lying on my side facing away from the door when the nurse came in and so "oh my". She rushed over to me and covered up my backside which apparently was out for the world to see! Too funny! So anyway it was time to start pushing and I gave a couple of pushes when my Dr. said he was going to go and check on a couple of other patients. He checked me once more before he left and realized I was a lot closer then they thought. Forget those other Ladies he had to stay here with me!
I gave a couple more pushes and out came my beautiful baby boy! I was so happy that the pushing did not last the hours that it did with my first baby! We named our firstborn son Ryker Jeremy. Ryker was the last name of a missionary Kefford knew on his mission and we both thought that was a cool name. We gave him the middle name Jeremy after my older brother Jeremy and Keffords just younger brother Jeremy.
helper nurse, nurse, Dr. Werdel with Ryker, Intern and Me! :0)
Ryker Jeremy Peterson
November 8, 2002
8 pounds 10 ounces 20 1/2 inches long