Life with our newest blessing

Wow... I am finally getting around to this. And my little girl is only one month old today! But hey, I have a good excuse... I have a newborn and an attention-desperate toddler, so most days I barely get around to brushing my teeth, much less cleaning the house or posting on my blog. Last night Sam was an exceptional husband and cleaned up the house quite a bit, including vacuuming, so I feel like I can post today (plus also, Brinley is actually sleeping without me having to hold her right now... a miracle!) So, I accidentally uploaded the pictures in the opposite order than I was intending, and I don't want to take the time to rearrange them, so this post will be told in reverse chronological order.

Levi loves his baby sister. Sometimes he gets a little too excited around her, resulting in tears, but Brinley is pretty tough. I wouldn't say that Levi has ever been jealous of Brinley, more upset that he no longer has our undivided attention. It is a major life-altering change to go from only child to older child. It is fun to watch Levi interact with Brinley, though. It took him no time at all to learn her name (Min-mee), and he loves to hold her which he indicates by pointing to her and then to himself. I think more than anything, Levi loves to give his baby sister kisses. So sweet!


This is Brinley right before we went home from the hospital. She was so itsy tiny that even the newborn outfits were huge on her. I actually ended up buying several Preemie onsies for her to wear the first three weeks.
Brinley's first bath. Thank you, Lacey, for taking these pictures since I was still like a beached whale from all the epidural meds. I heard her scream for most of the bath, but she stopped when they submerged her in the water. Ahh... something familiar!
Here's our little girl, all 6 lbs, 10 oz of her. We learned very quickly that she doesn't like to be messed with. Still, a month later, she screams when we change her clothes. She's okay with the diaper changing now though . I think she realized that a clean diaper meant relief.
Brinley just minutes after birth. She was so pink, right from the start. All the nurses commented on how great her color was.
The proud Momma and Daddy!
Alright, time for the labor and delivery story. I started having contractions a couple of weeks before Brinley was born. We had been hoping to wait until after the first of the year to have Brinley so that we would have insurance, but by Thanksgiving I just wanted her out! She was sitting so low that my hips had a hard time functioning and she was sitting on nerves making it so pain randomly shot down my legs knocking me off my feet. When the doctor checked me at 36 or 37 weeks, I was dilated to a one. Because I was so uncomfortable, we decided that if Brinley hadn't been born yet, the doctor would induce me on the 17th.

So, on Friday the 12th, I was having contractions again. It got to the point where I was just standing in the kitchen crying because of the pain, and Levi would alternate between hugging and kissing me and standing five feet away looking terrified. I called Sam and just said "I need help". The crying tipped him off that it was time to head home from work. After a couple of hours, we decided to take Levi to Sam's parents and head to the hospital, though we knew our doctor wouldn't like it: he was in the middle of a 12 hour surgery at another hospital and he works solo... so no on-call doctor available. But I was in more pain than I ever had been with Levi. I was sure I must be quite dilated. Got to the hospital and they put in under observation. I was dilated to a two... that it!...and of course my contractions slowed way down. After a couple of hours, I dilated to a three so they decided because I was progressing that they would admit me. That was around 9pm. The nurse gave me some pain meds so that I could sleep and they's see how much I had progressed in the morning. Well, morning came, but progression didn't! I was still at a three. They had me get up and walk around, then lay down and be monitored. Nothing was happening. I was so frustrated!!! Sometime late morning/early afternoon they put me on Pitocin to get the contractions really going. I've always told people with Levi that the Pitocin didn't make my contractions worse like I had heard they did. I think I know why now.... Pitocin doesn't work on me. They started me out on a 2 (not really sure what that means, that's just what the IV said). My sister called hours later when I still hadn't progressed and said, "Well, do they have her at a 12 yet?" (The highest dose she had gotten, which made her contractions extremely hard and painful.) I was at a 20, and I still couldn't hardly feel a thing.

We were waiting on the doctor to come and break my water. He was supposed to show up between one and two. At four o'clock he still wasn't there. Here I was, doped up on Pitocin and still not progressing. I was BEYOND frustrated and embarressed. The nurse was even trying to talk me into going home... after I had already been at the hospital for 23 hours! We decided that if the doctor didn't show up by 5pm then we would go home. Well, the doctor showed up at 4:30pm (He had a patient in labor at another hospital). He broke my water (I was dilated to a 4, finally... I guess the weak contractions were doing a little something.). As soon as he broke my water, I started shaking. They put in an internal monitor so they could measure how hard the contractions actually were... they were pretty surprised by how intense they were. And the pain was instantly excrusiating. Good thing the epidural guy was on the floor since he had just given another lady one. I got my epidural (not nearly as pleasant an experience as with Levi, but not horrible either) and my entire right side when very numb. My left side was slower to catch up, and a spot on my lower left side of my back felt extremely tender and sore, like an inflamed kidney or something. About 10 minutes later, I started feeling my contractions all over my left side, so the doctor came back in to give me a booster. It worked, I was completely numb except for one spot about the size of the tip of my pinky... weird.

Like I mentioned before, I started shaking as soon as my water broke. By shaking, I mean VIOLENTLY shaking. My shaking caused the bed to shake and all the equiptment. Sam got in bed with me to try and soothe my body. I'm not sure if it stopped the shaking, but it made me feel better. My shaking made it so that they couldn't register the baby's heartbeat, so they decided they needed to put in an internal monitor. I was at a five when I got the epidural, and this was less than a half later. When they went to put in the monitor, they saw that Brinley was crowning. I went from a 5 to a 10 in less than 30 minutes. Crazy, huh? That's why I was shaking so hard. The doctor told the nurse to turn off my epidural, otherwise I'd still be numb long long after the baby came. I gave a couple of hard pushes, but then the doctor told me to just let my body do it itself, that she was coming whether I pushed or not. It was so nice... no tearing or screaming. In fact, there was more laughing and joking around than anything. Let me tell you, it is SOOOO nice to birth a baby that has a small head. Makes recovery a snap.

Brinley's birth had a couple of surprised for us. First, the doctor had me deliver Brinley myself... something I was not expecting and wasn't really sure that I wanted to do, but it ended up being a really awesome experience. They put her right up on my chest, which I always thought was gross, but it was actually a good bonding experience. And Sam cut the umbilical cord, again something unexpected and not exactly wanted, but a good experience.

About two hours after Brinley was born, Sam's family brought Levi to the hospital to meet his new sister. I was fully expecting him to be wary of me because of the IV and hospital bed and everything, but he wasn't. He climbed up and sat next to me. He got a couple of "Big Brother" presents that occupied his attention the rest of the time. He got restless super fast, though, and was anxious to leave. Hospitals aren't very much fun for little ones... or big ones either, I guess.

We had to stay the night again at the hospital, but then we talked the nurses into letting us leave earlier than we were supposed to the next day. Being at the hospital is so boring. It started snowing right around the time that Brinley was born, and then didn't stop for two weeks. It snowed also when Levi was born (albiet that was in March, not December), so we have two snow babies. And we love them both so much! Below is a video of Levi and Brinley right when we got home from the hospital. It is pretty hard to hear Sam, but he is asking Levi where all of Brinley's body parts were (eyes, nose, toes, etc.). Levi pointed to all of them, which surprised us since we'd never played that game before.