The Richards: Our Family's Journey: Brynn's Arrival (10-7-10)

On Wednesday morning at 3:30am I woke up to the onset of labor. Contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart lasting 30-45 seconds. Brandon and I took the day off not knowing if this early labor was going to amount to anything. I was checking in with the Dr. every 3 hours to update her on my progress. She recommended a walk to speed up labor. At this point I was able to talk through each contraction and they werent too painful. It was about 3:00pm when Brandon and I left the house with Oscar to go for a walk. We were gone for about 45 minutes. Near the end of the walk I was no longer able to walk through a contraction; each one caused me to stop and wait for it to pass before continuing our walk (lasting almost a minute and coming every 3 minutes). Fortunately, this happened at the tail end of our walk. The walk did its job; at 4:30pm (shortly after we returned home my bag of waters broke. We waited about an hour before leaving for the hospital. Brandon navigated well through traffic and we arrived at St. Vincent at 6:00pm. They admitted us and checked my progress. They confirmed the bag of waters had broke and I was 2cm dilated and fully effaced. The baby's head was in a great location to help dilate the cervix. The latter was great news of course, but the 2 cm almost derailed me. I couldnt believe the intensity of each contraction and how long I had been contracting and I was only at a 2. This to me was mindboggling, considering I was at a 1 on Monday, before labor started.

We were taken to our delivery room where the 3 different nurses tried to administer an IV in the midst of what I would consider very intense contractions. After the 5th poke th 3rd nurse managed to get the IV started. Shortly after, the nurse performed a cervical check. I was at 4cm. I requested the epidural as I would consider my pain level to be a 10. I was probably 5 cm by the time the nurse arrived to administer the epidural. My goal was to be at 5 cm.

Once the epidural was given around 9:30pm I was able to "relax". I could still feel the contractions but they were nothing like I was experiencing beforehand. They were similar to the intensity of early labor or Braxton Hicks. My body did as it was suppose to. At 1am on 10-7-10 the nurse checked my cervix and I was fully dilated at 10 cm and the baby was starting to make her way down. This point is called laboring down, I didnt feel the need to push. At 2:30 am the doctor arrived and I started pushing. In about 5 or 6 contractions or 20 minutes the baby was born.

The doctor placed her on my chest where she stayed for about 90 minutes. What an amazing experience!

Her first bath was given in the delivery room and then we were taken to our post partum room. The baby never left our site.

We went to bed around 6 am and were up again at 9am. With nurses coming and going for a number of different reasons and the frequency in which the baby needed to nurse made it quite impossible to sleep much longer than 2-3 hours.

Around noon we decided on a name for our little bundle of joy. We named her Brynn Lorene Richards.

We left the hospital on Fridy, 10-8-10 at 3pm. The pediatrician visited twice and cleared Brynn for departure and the nurses and doctor were checking on me regularly and also cleared me to go home. The only adverse test result was the jaundice test. Brynn was slightly jaundice and because of this we were given a Billy Blanket (light therapy) for Brynn to be wrapped in until the doctor cleared her. On Saturday and Sunday we took Brynn in for testing to monitor her levels. On Monday, we saw the pediatrician and she cleared Brynn.

Everyone is doing well and happy to be home. Brandon and I are enjoying parenthood and think Brynn is wonderful.