Brynn Felice

My last post said, "More posts coming soon...I promise!" That was in 2012. 

I've had a baby since then. Yikes. 

Believe me, I have plenty of mommy guilt about not blogging about my pregnancy with sweet Brynny, but I have to let myself off the hook for that. So instead, I will share my favorite pregnancy photo:

39 weeks and 4 days. Thanksgiving Thursday, 11/28/13. Three days before Brynn was born. 

It was a difficult pregnancy. Almost from the moment the stick turned blue, I could hardly breathe. I spent much of my pregnancy in a prone position because I felt so lousy. We moved into a new home on May 1, which I really don't recommend to a pregnant woman. I was focused on keeping people alive and as a result didn't do much nesting or home-making for the first six months we lived here. That was a real burden on my heart because of the enormous blessing we have received in this house. 

On November 30, we went out to dinner with my parents and Richard's dad and had a wonderful time. Then we took the kids home and went Christmas shopping. While we waited in line at Target I had a strange twinge in my chest. I thought, "I wonder if I'm in labor." And then I didn't give it another thought. 

We all went home watched a movie and hung out until late at night. Richard went to sleep around midnight and I stayed up goofing around on Facebook and playing with my new iPad. At 1am I had a contraction. I thought, "I don't waaaaaant to do this tonight." I let Richard stay asleep because, if we're being honest, I had more false alarms this time around than with either of the other two pregnancies.  So, after that first contraction, of course, I couldn't sleep because I was so anxiously paying attention to my body. 

At 3am I woke Richard up and told him to plug his phone in and make sure it was charged up because I thought we might be going in to the hospital tonight. His response? "Are you SURE this time?" Uh, no...I wasn't sure. But by 3:15 we had our answer. In that short amount of time my contractions became so intense we decided to call our doula. We talked and agreed to wait until 4am to call the hospital. It was going SO FAST, I thought for sure I was overreacting and I was going to be in for a very long night...or even night AND day. 

Alas, God had other plans. At 3:15 we called the hospital and were advised to come in...to make haste. Apparently, when you're on your third child, they don't mess around. At 3:30 I said to Richard, "Go start the car, wake up my mother and carry the suitcases out. Wait! Help me get dressed." My mom told me later that she heard Richard barrel down the stairs and into their bedroom in the basement to wake them up and didn't even have to say anything before she was on her way upstairs to help out. We left the house at 3:43. I remember this because I told myself it would only be seventeen minutes until we got to the hospital. That's how unbelievably intense and fast the pain was--I was focused on surviving each individual minute.

When we got to the hospital and got checked in it was about 4:15. From there, I don't remember much of the timeline other than that I asked for drugs and was told there really wasn't time. I'm fairly certain that asking for drugs was one of the last full sentences I uttered for the next two hours. I was dilated 4cm when we arrived, which didn't seem like much to me at all. But by the time Fern arrived around 5am, I was at 6cm. They let me get in the water birth tub pretty quickly after that, where I did an embarrassing amount of shouting and screaming. I was embarrassed even as I was screaming, but literally could not put that energy anywhere else. 

From the time I got in the tub, things went very quickly (for everyone else!). Labor progressed very rapidly until I started pushing on my own. I suppose I pushed for a half hour or so. I dunno. Richard said no one was talking or moving or breathing...because in "wasn't very approachable." LOL! This is so different than the first two kids. I chatted and joked through the pain. With Richardboy I even asked them to chat to help me remain focused. This time, things went so fast and so intense that chatting would have been unbearable. 

Anyway, I started pushing and Fern was literally running between my room and another room helping another mama deliver. So...when I pushed once, then twice and said, "My Jesus! My baby!" The nurse said, "Oh my gosh, is that a head? Is that the baby?" I briefly thought, "Am I going to have to deliver this baby myself??" Instead, the nurse reached into the water with only one glove on and grabbed the baby. Richard shouted, "It's a girl!" And that is how our Brynn Felice came to be. Born at 6:30am on her due date on December 1, 2013, weighing 7lbs, 5oz at 20.5 inches.