Our Recent Arrival

We feel so blessed to have our new baby boy-Tanner Davidson Cates-join our family.  He is just a precious little guy and we already love him so much!  There's not much better than having a newborn in your home and we recognize that it truly is a blessing to have him arrive safely and to be so healthy.

2 last belly shot pictures, 38 weeks

I was induced last Wednesday when I was 38 weeks pregnant, which is just standard for diabetics.  We went in at about 7:15 am and got started on Pitocin about 2 hours later.  They broke my water and let the contractions begin!  After a few hours, I told our nurse Nikki I was getting ready to get an epidural, thinking I would be able to get it at least within the hour.  Turns out the Anesthesiologist was in a twin c-section and it took way longer than it should have.  Minutes just kept passing and my contractions were getting closer and closer and way more intense.  I was in SO much pain, it was awful.  At first, I was able to get through them by standing with Dave rubbing my back. They brought in a birthing ball, which really didn't help much.  But after a while of that, they were happening about every minute and I wasn't getting more than a 30 second break between them, so I had no time to recover before another one started.  I ended up just clutching the bed railing and Dave's hand, and moaning in pain with each one.  I was almost in tears.  The nurses felt so bad and were calling around the hospital to see if there was anyone available to do an epidural. When the nurse checked me, I had progressed from a 4 to a 9 in about 2 hours!  They set up the table and called my doctor, thinking I may be close.  The Anesthesiologist finally showed up after 2+ hours and was trying to ask me these questions before he put it in, I just yelled at him to ask Dave.  The epidural worked quickly and I was able to relax a little bit.  I have no idea why anyone would put themselves through that naturally, it's completely miserable.  I'm a full epidural supporter!

I was stuck between a 9 and a 10 for about an hour, which was fine with me because I really did need some time to let my body recover.  I pushed for 45 minutes, which might sound long to some people, but it didn't feel long at all and it was actually working, unlike the 2 1/2 hours I did with Brady!  We were so glad to hear his little cry and see he was big and healthy.  He was born at 4:45 pm, weighed 8 pounds even, and was 20.5 inches long.

Tanner's delivery felt a lot less busy than Brady's did. Brady was born right at the nurse's shift change and since they had to use forceps, the NICU nurses had to look at him right away and my doctor was in and out between me and another patient.  With Tanner, it was just Dave and I, Dr. Yamashiro, and our nurses Nikki and Joni.  It was nice to be able to hold him right away and to feel like we could enjoy those first minutes of his life.  He nursed just like a champ from the very first feeding.

We were taken up to the Postpartum floor a little bit later and had Dave's parents as our first visitors. 

Dave went home for the night (one of us might as well get a good night's sleep, right?) and it was just me and my perfect little boy.  I just love staring at him sleeping and looking at all his features.  I was planning on keeping him in my room all night, but after an hour or so being woken up by his little noises  every 10 minutes, I ended up having his cute nurse take him to the nursery.  She brought him in 2 times during the night so I could feed him and both times I woke up just minutes before she called to tell me he was ready.

*This is a cute story-There were 5 babies born all within 2 minutes of each other, at 4:44, 4:45, or 4:46.  The nurse said all these babies totally interacted and would look at one another and would all be ready to eat at the same time.  Makes you wonder what they were all doing together right before they were born!

Tanner got his first bath the next morning, which he screamed the whole way through.  His temperature was a little low after, so he had to stay under the warmer for a little bit.  He looks completely chunky in that picture!

We had quite a few visitors this day, which we enjoyed:

My mom brought Brady down and he really didn't care about Tanner at all, which is probably a good thing.  They ate Iceberg for lunch with us.  I swear Brady gained 10 pounds and grew 4 inches from the last time we had seen him.  

Nana

Cameo and Logan

Aunt Carrie and Popcan

Emily and Frederick

and also my friend Rachel and Aunt Amy visited.

I was feeling really good this day and we did lots of hall walking at a semi-normal pace.  Such a relief that the delivery went so much better than Brady's!

We really liked Jess, our day nurse for both days.  We all know Dave is good at getting things from people and she gave us close to 200 diapers, 8 packs of wipes, and other good stuff.  We didn't quite get out as soon as we would have liked since we were waiting to hear back what Tanner's billirubin was.  It was increasing, but not high enough for him to be put under the lights.  Yeah!  Here's us getting ready to go.

We're happy to have him home.  He pretty much just sleeps the entire day long.  He loves to be held while he sleeps, and I usually take him downstairs to cuddle on the couch after his early-morning feeding.  We're glad he is a much quieter sleeper than Brady was because he will be in our room for a few months.  He pees (and cries) almost every time he gets his diaper changed.  The pediatrician was a little bit worried about his umbilical cord getting infected, so we had to take him in every day for several days to get it looked at and had to get some lab work done to check his blood count and billirubin.  We were glad when we didn't have to take him in anymore because things were looking so good!  Brady has started warming up to Tanner a little bit.  He still won't hold him, but he likes to give him his binkie and ran upstairs yesterday to get me a diaper when he knew I was needing to change it.

We love our newest family member and can't wait to get to know him better.  I don't think babies can get more precious than this: