Each year for Labor Day Weekend, we go to Moab with the Smith side of the family. We left Thursday the 1st of Sept in the evening at about 7 or 8 o'clock and arrived around midnight. In the morning, it was mine and Emily's day to make all the food and plan the days activities, so we woke up early to start cutting up vegetables and meat for the omelettes and preparing other things for the breakfast and lunches that we packed for everyone. After that we left to go hiking for the day. 1st we hiked to Corona Arch, which was super cool but also super duper hot--we all stayed very well hydrated and saw the arch and returned to our cars in safety. After the dry and hot hike to the arch, we decided to go to a more cool and calm place so we went to Mill Creek North Fork, which after about a mile has a nice cool waterhole that you can swim in. Finally we got back to our condo for the night, and Emily and I barbecued hamburgers and hotdogs for everyone and cleaned up when we were all done eating. Then after talking and planning for the next day, Emily finally went to bed at around 10:30 or 11:00 and I soon followed after her. At about 12:30 A.M. Saturday morning Emily woke me up saying that she had been having contractions. I knew that contractions could mean that you were having a baby and I also knew that there were other contractions that didn't mean a whole lot and seeing as how emily wasn't due until the 29th of Sept. I assumed that they were the not important kind, but Em told (and proved) me otherwise. So, we started measuring how far apart the contractions were getting, and when they started getting down to about 6 minutes we decided to call our doctor, Doctor Curtis, to see what we should do. Unfortunately, Dr. Curtis was out of town, but we were able to talk to Dr. Merrill (who was great) and he told us that if they did get down to within five minutes that we would need to go to a hospital. Soon enough the contractions were within five minutes and we decided to go to the hospital there in Moab--we found a brand new facility had been built there earlier this year. We got there at probably 3 or 4 in the morning and the nurses there took great care of Emily and gathered all the information they needed before telling us that it was likely that Emily was indeed going into labor but that it wasn't sure at the same time (it made sense at the time...). They told us that we had some options; we could stay in the hospital in Moab and wait for the baby to come or the contractions to totally stop, we could leave the hospital and stay in Moab and hope that Em was only going through false labor, or we could head back to Salt Lake and go to a hospital there if the contractions continued and be closer to facilities and doctors that we knew and would probably need with a possible 36-week newborn. This was a kinda tense time for us, we were worried about all the normal things people worry about when they might be going into labor, but we were also worried about the earliness of the labor (we were expecting to have 4 more weeks until the baby would come), being far from home, and not having a NICU in the Moab hospital. Not to mention the long drive home and whether or not emily would go into labor on the way back to Salt Lake, possibly making everybody end their vacation early, and finding out that it was nothing but a false labor. So, it was a little bit stressful and tiring, but we decided that we were going to go back to Salt Lake. The nurses gave emily a couple of shots of terbutaline which slowed the contractions way down long enough for us to go to the condo at 6 in the morning saturday, pack the things we needed, and drive all the way back to Salt Lake (arriving at 10-11). When we finally got home, Emily tried to relax and take it easy and sleep while the contractions increased in strength and frequency. Emily, however, was unable to sleep even though she had hardly slept at all the two previous nights. Emily decided to take a bath to help her relax but when the bath was over the contractions were so frequent and strong that she was unable to dress herself. So, after helping her dress I told her that we were going to go to the hospital and we arrived there at about 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. I ran inside to get someone to wheelchair her to where she need to be while I parked the car. As I followed her in I passed the nurse who had pushed emily and she told me the room that she would be in--the other nurses there told me that Emily did not look like a "happy camper" and others who were talking about her (I imagined her yelling and screaming down the hall as she got carted to her room). All the nurses took really good care of Emily and made her feel comfortable and relatively relaxed, one of them came in to feel how far dilated Em was and said that she was probably going into real labor. In Moab she was at a 2, and now she was at a 4. When it was decided that she was really going into labor they brought in the anesthesiologist and gave Emily an epidural at which point she was FINALLY able to calm down and relax while I called the families and let everyone know what was happening. At about 8:00, Emily was completely dilated and effaced (I don't know what effaced mean) and the doctor told her that some times women have to push for up to three hours at this point. So with that, Emily began to push and within 20 minutes Sterling Roark Smith was born at 7 lbs and 3.3 oz and 20.5 ". Sterling's first APGAR test score was a 9 and his second was 8 because he was having a little bit of trouble getting some moisture out of his lungs. But, he was able to finally get it all out and has been healthy and happy ever since. Emily and I spent the rest of the night, the next day, and the next morning in the hospital while the doctors and nurses made sure that Sterling and his mom were healthy. At long last we were able to go home (still living at my parents while we wait for house issues to be resolved) and my mom and dad had cleaned and prepared our bedroom for the new arrival! And that is the story so far...
