our son, Tanner Benjamin, was born on Sunday, February 15 at 1:38 a.m. He weighed 7 lbs 10 oz. and measured 20.5 inches long. our family is truly in love and blessed to have him a part of our lives. Tanner was born out in Stony Plain at the Westview Health Centre under the care of a fabulous labour & delivery team including our midwife Joan Margaret.
Labour started around 11:30 p.m. on Valentine's day - four days past our due date - although I wasn't convinced that it was the real thing. it was after I had asked Brad to turn the clock toward me so that I could "see the time" and he was aware that my breathing was changing every 4 minutes or so, that Brad decided it was time to get up and call
Michelle, my doula. still not convinced that this was real - as the contractions were so short, I called her but just so that she could remain on stand by. within half an hour, during which time I continued to pack and defend my position to Brad that it wasn't time yet, Brad called my parents to come over and watch our daughter, called Michelle to meet us in Stony and convinced me that we should start heading in to the birth centre - a 40 minute drive from our place. he finally convinced me to go (although I told my mom that I was only leaving because he would drive me crazy otherwise!) and we were out the door around 12:30. before we got in the car, my contractions were about 3 minutes apart but still not lasting more than about 30 seconds. I was sure that they would slow down once we were driving - unfortunately, this was not the case and they were coming every 2 minute for the bulk of the drive. At about 1:00 a.m. we arrived at the birth centre (thankfully as I had been scaling my chair in the car for the last couple of contractions), where I was met by Michelle. we walked directing into a delivery room where I was examined by the nurse only to find out that I was 9 cm dilated! they quickly filled the tub (we had a water birth), called the midwife (who thankfully arrived in time) and in about 30 minutes, he was born!
it was a quick, intense and amazing journey and I am so thankful to all of those who were present for this moment.
anyway, here are some pictures of our newest addition. we also had some family ones done and they can be viewed at
this site my two beautiful children!
