Bringing Home Brooklyn
As most of you know our little girl arrived July 31, 2013 at 12:19 pm. We are already so in love and can't imagine our life without her. For documentation purposes I wanted to share her birth story....
Tuesday, July 30th at 2:00 AM I woke up in severe pain. It was something that I had never experienced before and it was soon after the fog lifted that I realized we were in labor. John woke up about an hour later and he was shocked when I told him that I was having contractions. I had been counting my contractions and although they were only lasting 30-45 seconds they were consistent and were only about 6-7 minutes apart. I tried sleeping through them but that was impossible. I told John that I thought he should go ahead and take a shower and get his bag officially packed.We called the OBGYN around 8:30 AM and she told us to go ahead and head to the hospital. We arrived at Sibley Memorial around 9:30 AM and was admitted. Although I was in a lot of pain, John and I could not hide our excitement that we would be meeting our little girl soon. We were at the hospital for about 3 hours when the OBGYN came in and told us that although I was having contractions they weren't leading to the cervical change they wanted to see (I was still only 1 cm dilated and 65% effaced). They gave me the option to walk the halls for two hours or go home. I opted to go home so that I could rest comfortably. The doctor had given me Ambien to get some sleep and man that stuff is powerful... I wish I had not taken it because although I got an hour of sleep I felt so out of it and it did not take the contractions away. At around 9:30 PM we arrived back at Sibley Memorial and were admitted again... I had officially made progress 2-3 cm! I was still in so much pain but the doctor said that she did not want want me to administer the epidural yet. Apparently the look on my face showed how displeased I was, so they gave in and said I could go ahead and have it. I had chosen to go to Sibley for multiple reasons but one of them was because our Anesthesiologists at work come from Sibley and I knew I would be in the best care possible. At around 1:00 AM the Anesthesiologist arrived... 23 hours of continual labor and this girl was incredibly happy to see him! At 5:30 AM the doctor came in and I had progressed to a 4 so they decided to break my water. I was finally able to get some long awaited sleep. They came back in around 8:15 AM and we had progressed even more- we were now officially 6-7 cm dilated! I started to feel as though I was going to be sick to my stomach around 11:00 AM so I called for the nurse.... who went on to tell me that I was fully dilated. It was time to push...The OBGYN had told me all day that the hardest part would be the delivery and boy was she right. I was already almost 33 hours into my labor and to think about exerting more energy was beyond me. In the middle of pushing, the OBGYN decided to tell me that most first time moms take a minimum of 3 hours to push. I was bound and determined to make it happen in less than that.
We pushed for about an hour... the doctor was able to deliver her head and one shoulder but was unable to deliver the second shoulder so she literally had the nurse get on top of me and push the baby out. It was a dramatic finish to a very long day but our little one was finally here! The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and she had apparently had a lot of fluid in her lungs so before I could hold her they cleaned her up and removed the excess fluid from her lungs. Once they finished assessing her they brought her over to me and it was love at first sight. Looking back now I would do it all again- the contractions, pushing, 34 hours... she's perfect!
She is truly the best thing that John and I could ever do as husband and wife.We can't wait to watch her grow into a little lady. Thank you for being a part of this!