Welcome to the World! (Brady's Birth Story...long!)

Brady Austin Jones is here! Brad and I could not be any happier or feel any more blessed. As I keep saying, life is good.

There were many predictions going around on when this baby would make his appearance. I had two friends that guessed exactly right. I woke up at 2am Monday and thought perhaps my water broke but it was such a minuscule amount I was not about to wake up our house in panic and went back to sleep. I woke up an hour later with an extremely strong contraction wondering, is this really it? But again, went back to sleep. Then the alarm went off to start the work week, oh joy, and I was about to step out of bed...water broke. I woke Brad up and started our panic of trying to pack our hospital bags (had talked about needing to do this just the day before) and an overnight for Mr. Blake. We could barely focus on anything but we managed to pack our bags successfully, wake up Blake and get him dressed and get ourselves out the door to drop Blake off at school for the day. I have to admit the timing couldn't have been any better. We arrived at the hospital around 8 and evidently my water had not fully broken and my contractions were not close together, so they started me on potocin and finished breaking my water. The induction meds and water breaking did not occur until around 11am. At the beginning of the morning I was close to 5cm dilated. Several hours later I was only a 6 so thought we might have a long day ahead of us. The nurse came to recheck me at 2:35pm and said I was ready to start pushing. What?! So she left the room for a few minutes to get a few things for delivery and about 5 minutes later I did my first set of 3 pushes and she told me to stop as she did not trust me and paged the doctor for delivery. Everything was moving so much faster this time around than with Blake. I just kept praying and praying I would not have to push for hours like I did last time. The doctor arrived to deliver Brady, who is maybe 5 feet tall and the world's most petite woman. Meanwhile I was laying on a bed that had been risen way up to accommodate my tall hubby and tall nurse. My nurse went to lower the bed, only for it to not budge. Awesome. So she said sometimes you have to raise up the bed to lower it. She raised it to the highest setting, I felt like I could have touched the ceiling. She then went to lower it...nothing. Great. They unplug the bed, move the bed away from the wall trying to reset it or manually adjust it. Nothing. Meanwhile, I am ready to push this baby out! So after their efforts were unsuccessful, they brought in 2 step stools and stacked them on top of each other. Seriously. The doctor that delivered my baby had to stand on top of stacking step stools. Sounds safe, doesn't it? I pushed I think maybe 2 or 3 more sets of 3 and out came baby at 3pm, only 25 minutes after the nurse had told me it was time to push. I could not believe he was out. Such a different experience this time around. As he came out I heard one of the nurses say the cord was wrapped around his neck once which caused me a moment of panic, however a second later he screamed and didn't stop exercising his pipes for about 15 minutes! They laid him on my chest and I was in awe. My sweet baby boy. The whole experience was so incredible and amazing and now I have two perfect beautiful baby boys and the most supportive wonderful husband by my side. I am in a state of euphoria. Being a mom the second time around, even though it is only day 4, is so much calmer, more relaxing and I'm able to enjoy each moment so much more it seems. Now once I can recover from the pain of delivery, I'll feel like a million bucks! Brady is eating well and sleeping great (knock on wood). We go to the pediatrician this morning to recheck his weight and make sure he's progressing as he should! Here is a picture my friend Heather took with her amazing photography skills. Next post...Blake's reaction to meeting his little brother for the first time!