Alexis Lee Peterson

On Friday, June 3, at about 1:15 pm, we welcomed Alexis Lee Peterson to our family. She weighed 7lbs 8oz and was 19 inches long. I thought I'd write a bit about our experience.

I guess we'll start a few weeks back. It was probably 3-4 weeks ago when I was at my OB appt that my doctor mentioned that we had the option of scheduling an induction with this pregnancy. (I guess they try to avoid inductions with first children, but if you're not having your first, they will induce you after 39 weeks.) Anyway, up to that point, I hadn't really considered an induction. I assumed that most were done only after the baby was overdue. I asked the doctor a few questions and told him I'd be talking it over with Garrick and would get back to him.

So, Garrick and I talked about it and decided that boy, it could be really convenient. If we picked the right date, Garrick would be done with school, Garrick's parents would be stopping by on their way back from MO, and the doctor that I saw the most would be the one on call. And what about the convenience of being able to schedule babysitting for Logan ahead of time? We decided that the conveniences were definitely worth it, and we got ourselves on the hospital's induction list for Friday, June3.

As this was still a few weeks away, it was interesting to see peoples' reactions when I would mention that we were planning on having our baby on June 3. I was told by a few that labor would be harder with an induction, and to be quite honest, I was starting to doubt a little if I wanted to continue with our plan. Hmmm.... What to do?

Even on Friday, the day of the scheduled induction, Garrick asked me one last time, "Are you sure you want to do this today?" I said, "Yep, at least I think I'm sure." The hospital called at about 8 am and asked if we could be there by 9:30.

We got to the hospital, they got an IV going, and the first drips of Pitocin started at about 10:15. (By the way, we had a nurse-in-training helping one of the nurses, and she was the one putting in my IV. It turned out ok, but I wasn't super thrilled about the situation.) After that, it all seemed to go pretty fast. Garrick and I just talked for the first hour or so, and then the contractions started getting pretty painful. I requested my epideral, and thankfully, the anesthesiologist was fairly quick to get to me. Once that kicked in, it was smooth sailing. We watched the contractions on the monitor. They had to decrease the pitocin at one point because my contractions were getting a little too close together. Before I knew it, I was feeling the tightening of the contractions in my lower body rather than in my abdomen. I mentioned this to the nurse when she came in, and she decided to check me (good idea). She said, "I can feel her head." I asked her what I was dilated to, and she said, "Oh, you're fully dilated. I better call the doctor." She called the doctor and started prepping all the baby stuff. Several other nurses came in and then it became a waiting game. Would the doctor get there in time? I'll admit, even with his office just two or three minutes away, I was a little nervous that he wouldn't. Thankfully, he did. I pushed through one contraction, and we were introduced to our new daughter. What a blessing she is!