Welcome, Tyler James

Wow... We've been at the hospital since 9am on Thursday morning. Our little man just couldn't pass the non-stress test at our last OB appointment. His heart rate was a steady 144 beats per minute, but just wouldn't jump up high enough when he moved around. Being 7 days overdue already, we had to make the decision to induce labor.

We declined Pitocin initially. Our Midwife, Michelle (who is a complete angel, by the way), gave us some options and opinions. We all decided on Cytotec. It's not indicated for inducing labor, but it works. We started Cytotec at 3pm on Thursday (after doing tests since 9am, with a Bob Evans break at 11:30a). Sarah started having weak contractions shortly thereafter. At 3:30am Friday morning, contractions suddenly got very strong. They were 2 minutes apart, lasting 60 seconds. This went on for 12 hours, with very hard contractions. At 3pm the next day (Friday) Sarah was put on Pitocin, because her uterus was getting tired and starting to fizzle a little bit. She was also given a morphine shot, because she didn't have any break for a nap, and the contractions were very strong and painful. She continued to have contractions while she slept. She woke up after 3 hours and continued with hard contractions.

After all this, Sarah was only dilated to 2cm. The pitocin continued. At 11pm that night (Friday still), she was dilated to 5cm. At midnight, her water broke. At around 4am (Saturday) her contractions got much much harder. Michelle (our midwife) said it sounded like it was time to call family to come up to the hospital. Another check at 5am and Sarah was still only 5cm dilated. Michelle pulled me outside and said that the baby's head wasn't pushing onto the cervix and so wasn't dilating more. At 8am, Sarah exhausted, we had no choice but to get an eipdural so Sarah could rest and alleviate some of the pain. At 10am, she was dilated to 6cm.

At 3pm (5 hours later) she was only 7cm dilated. We still had hopes for a natural (vaginal) birth, but had to begin discussions of a c-section. At 5pm, Sarah was still 7cm with no changes, other than the fact that her contractions were getting weaker and weaker and further and further apart. Her uterus was giving up.

There was no longer any other choice than to get a c-section. We felt extremely disappointed, but we knew in our hearts that we had exhausted ALL other options first. Her surgery was at 6pm. I was at Sarah's side during the surgery. She is, by far, the strongest, most resilient woman I know. I still have no idea how she endured 51 hours of hard contractions. At 6:14pm, our beautiful baby boy was born and shown to us. We were informed that there was no possible way Sarah could have had him naturally. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck 3 times, and he was physically too big to fit through her pelvic bone.

I stayed with him from then on. Sarah got closed up and wheeled off to ICU for recovery. I went downstairs with baby so he could get weighed and measured. We then took him back to Sarah so she could meet and feed him.

Everyone is doing fine now. Sarah is recovering very very well. She's already back on solid food and can walk for a bit now.

Our baby boy...
Tyler James Gearhart
10 pounds 2 ounces
22 inches long
He's a baby gorilla fer cryin' out loud.

Pictures are online...
http://TheGearharts.smugmug.com
Click on "Our Family"
Click on "Tyler James"

I'll be adding tons and tons of pics... so keep checking the site out.

We are truly blessed to have this tiny man here. As big as he is, I expect him to be walking and eating solid foods in about 3 days. I'll teach him how to drive next week. He'll probably have outgrown me before August.