Brinley's birth day

Time for a birth story. I figure I need to start here before diving in to all the funny things that come with sudden new parenthood.

It started on Thursday night, July 5th, when I went in for a routine non-stress test. A this point I was five days overdue and scheduled to be induced the coming Monday if baby hadn't come before then. When the nurse called the doctor with the results from my test to get me discharged, she came back and asked if, since the maternity ward was currently empty, we wanted to go ahead and induce right then.

I panicked a little and asked if I could take an hour or so to take a shower. And call my mom. She laughed and said that would be fine. So we had what I call a "surprise induction", which I kind of liked. It was still a surprise but we had time to go out to dinner and collect some things from the house. We checked in looking like we were at the hospital for a slumber party.

I got all checked in settled into the room we had chosen between 9-9:30pm, and began the process slowly over the next few hours. My parents arrived about midnight and left around 1am. I was wondering how much encouragement my body would need since I had been having fairly steady contractions since 4th of July but nothing I felt like I needed to time and rush to the hospital about. Turns out a gentle nudge was all I needed because between 2-2:30am I started to have monster contractions. I did opt for pain medication and had about three hours of hard labor (pain like nothing I'd ever experienced- you mommas who go natural, I am completely in awe of you). I didn't think the first stuff they gave me helped at all but my husband told me that before I had it contractions had made me cry, so it must have been at least a teeny bit better. My memory of that three hours is thankfully a bit hazy, but I do remember my hero Mark arriving. Mark was the anesthesiologist on call who gave me something magical called an epidural. I became a different person after that.

They checked my cervix at about 6am and I was about 5 1/2 dilated. Hubby and I took a nap. They checked me again about an hour later and I was at 10. Apparently Landon called my parents because suddenly my mom was there, and it was go time. I could feel when my body wanted to push but no pain. Landon said I was chatty. I pushed for about an hour and Brinley Adele was born officially at 9:01am.

The process was quick but recovery has been long. I don't want to dive too deep into the gory details but the doctor had to spend a good amount of time fixing me back up and looked concerned while doing it. It'll be a while before I feel fully healed. But my baby girl is absolutely beautiful, strong, and healthy, and I am so very, very blessed to have her.

And I'm not pregnant any more.

Many adventures to report and yet to come. Stay tuned.


Baby stats: 7 lbs, 14 oz
20 inches long