Brinley Nicole made her appearance into this world on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 7:33pm. She weighed 7lb., .8 (almost 1) oz. and measured 19" long.
That was the short & sweet version...
here's the long drawn out one:
Tuesday night we went to dinner with my parents to Red Lobster {we figured we weren't going to get out much in the near future and why would we EVER turn down a chance for those yummy biscuits?!}... earlier that day I had a baby dr. appt and found out I had been progressing, but again, slow & steady. That evening {before and during dinner} I had had a couple contractions, but nothing regular, so I chalked it up to my checkup. No big deal right?
Well, we got home and my poor husband wasn't feeling well, something wasn't settling well from dinner. He went to bed almost immediately, and me, the insomniac, stayed up playing solitaire hoping to get tired soon. Around 12 midnight, my contracts all of the sudden got regular. I glanced at the clock every time they started and they were roughly 5 minutes apart. Crap. Around 12:30a I woke Matt up telling him what was going on. I got out my handy dandy iPad so I could time my contractions (oh yes, I had an app for that... nerd alert!) Sure enough, for the next 1/2 hour, they were 5 min apart and all lasting about 1 minute. We called the midwife and decided I should come in, for peace of mind if nothing else. So we got ahold of my parents, mom came over to save the day/night and watch Cooper until we knew what was going on. We got to the hospital, I got checked and sure enough, I was progressing. I was a keeper!
I labored ALLLLL morning. Remember Matt not feeling well? Yeah, he still wasn't. He felt awful in a couple different ways - he wanted to be there for me, but his issues weren't always letting him. We were a barrel of fun that night/morning! Anyways, I was progressing, labor was getting stronger, and finally around 7a I was SO tired, by that time we had both been up over 24 hours and I knew we had a long road ahead of us... so I asked for drugs because I wanted to SLEEP. They gave me some good stuff in my IV and it pretty much knocked me out. A couple hours later, my labor stopped all together {CRAP!!!!!} My mom had come up to be with us in the hospital - Matt needed some moral support & he sure wasn't getting it from me! Because my labor had stopped I was freaking out - "maybe I wasn't in REAL labor because it stopped", "maybe I was just too eager to be done being pregnant that I convinced myself it was the real thing", "what the heck did I get myself into", "they better not send me home without a baby! #@$%%@#!!!!!", "crap crap crap crap!!"
We decided to try to get labor going... after a painful check I started walking, using a bouncy labor ball, anything to try & get labor started. I had a few contractions, but nothing that gave me peace of mind knowing they were going to become regular. Another hour or two later, she checked me, I had slightly progressed and was about halfway there when we had to make a decision... send me home to see what happens or break my water and go from there. I {go figure} opted to open the flood gates and didn't care what I'd have to go through in case breaking my water didn't get me going. I didn't care, I wasn't leaving without a baby dang it! {in my mind it was a different word, but you get the picture!}
After she broke my water (it was around 2pm at this point), I worked with the midwife and decided to try some homeopathic supplements that are supposed to help your body start up labor naturally (my goal was to not need the evil crap pitocin!). Lucky for me, with walking, the supplements and a combination of other things... labor started again!
Quick fun fact about my labor(s): I've had every.single.contraction.in.my.back. Do you know how much that sucks?! If you haven't had the lucky experience of back labor, let me just fill you in on the fantastic reality: it was like getting run over by a freight train for a whole minute, or more, and then 3 minutes later, doing it all over again! It was fantastic. Anywho... back labor is super fun.
Once I had progressed seemingly enough and my contractions were nice & regular {because the LAST thing I wanted to do was get my happy miracle drug & labor to stop... again}, I ordered up that epidural knowing I could be in this unbearable pain for up to another hour... or more. {YIKES!} Thankfully, Mr. Wonderful {aka the anesthesiologist} showed up, got me set up on my epidural, and after that I was one happy gal. Matt fell asleep after that, he was very worn out & still not feeling 100%, Mom kept telling me to shut up and rest because I was yacking the nurse's ear off, playing on facebook, texting, playing solitaire, etc. {man I sound lame!} But here's the thing, for the last couple hours I wasn't able to do anything but make people listen to me be in pain, I was totally in my happy place! Labor was progressing and I wasn't feeling it. Oh happy day!
Well, drugs work well with me, 40 minutes later the nurse checked me and I went from a 7 to 10 in 40 min. As Matt put it... "the epidural strikes again!" haha Love my hubby. I started feeling pressure, so the midwife got called in from a C-section she had scrubbed in on (she wasn't performing the c-section, just had to be there) - came in to check me and guess what? It was time to push! I freaked out slightly. I was mentally prepared to push for 2-1/2 hrs like I did with Cooper, but REALLY didn't want to.
So I pushed... and 5 contractions {8 minutes later} at 7:33pm... little miss Brinley was born!!! It was such a cool experience, but I was in complete shock when she was here so quickly! The nurse & Rachel laid her on my belly and I said, "holy crap that was it?! That's the kind of delivery story I get pissed at people for telling me!" hah! I guess all deliveries are different! I felt great for just having a baby, sooooo much better than that marathon 2-1/2 hr push fest with Mr. Cooper.
What kills me in all this is that I was in pain all day... but to be technical in the medical world, I had active labor for 5 hours and transitional labor (from becoming fully effaced to delivery) for 20 min. Sounds like nothing right? Yeah, it kinda pissed me off when I heard that... actually, my reaction was more like... "you realize I've been feeling this since MIDNIGHT right?! 5 hours my butt." Oh well, whatcha gonna do?! Brinley is here, healthy and we couldn't have asked for it to go smoother.
Cooper met her the next morning. He's adjusting well to the new little addition to our family. He doesn't necessarily want to hold her, but gets very concerned if she's crying, needs a paci, etc. He likes to give her toys too - like his matchbox cars. He doesn't just share those with anyone you know! He's a good boy and will make SUCH a good big brother.
Here a couple pictures from the hospital:
Fresh from the oven
The boys doting on her
Ready to go home!
I will be posting more photos soon, but the main point of this post is to let you know that Brinley is here, she's healthy and ready to take on the world!! We love you Brinley Nicole!!
