So I guess I should have typed this entry first to start off my blog with. But it just came to me today that I haven't written out my entire birth story, and I wanna get it down before it fades from my memory. So here it is. (If this type of thing makes you queasy, stop reading now... it's really not that graphic!)
It all started on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008. My mom and I went for a nice long walk that morning at The Gardens Park in Summerlin. She was off work and we planned on a nice walk and then lunch. So we walked for a while and went to Kona Grill to eat. I felt nothing different all day. In fact, I felt better than I had in a while. At this point, I was 37 weeks and 6 days pregnant. (Considered full term).
After lunch, I went home to lie down because I was super tired. (what else was new?) So I did just that. Being at home, my new obsession became the Ellen Show. So I laid on the couch watching her, and cracking up laughing as usual when I felt a warm sensation down below. I thought I'd peed my pants. It was just a small trickle, but nonetheless, I went upstairs to rinse off, change and I came back downstairs. I sat down again....and same thing. Same trickle. At this point I remember thinking WTH is going on here? So I went BACK upstairs and did the same thing, laughing on my way up thinking "Is Ellen really that funny that I'm peeing my pants?" (When you're pregnant, ANYTHING can make you pee your pants though, lol..) At this point, Adam came through the door of the house and was getting ready to take a shower. I told him that I had to change my clothes like 3 times already because I kept peeing my pants, so he told me I should just sit on the toilet and pee. (MEN!!!) I told him I didn't even feel like I needed to go, it was just happening. Let me add in here that at no point did I think that this was my water breaking. I went back downstairs to fix Adam some lunch before he had to go to school and Vicky called me. I laughed and told her about my "warm sensation" and she said my water might have broken. I told her to google the symptoms and call me back. When she called back, she asked me a series of questions. "What color was the liquid? Did it have an odor? How much was there? How are you feeling..." and the list went on. Finally, I thought I better call my OB just to be safe. So I did and the triage nurse told me to head over to Labor and Delivery so they could do a fluid check. I went upstairs and told Adam this news and I remember we stood there looking at each other with this look of fear. He grabbed my hospital bag and the boppy and said let's take these just in case. Again, at this point I thought this was all just a false alarm but said, okay. So he walked me downstairs and loaded me into the car. Adam had school that night and since I was POSITIVE this wasn't the baby coming, I told him to go on to school (his union school is SUPER strict and holds his raises back a month for each class he misses!!) and that if it was the real deal, I would call him to come meet me at the hospital. He didn't want me to go alone, so I called Vicky to meet me there. After I got in the car, I called Jackie first. She didn't believe me when I told her, but said to keep her posted!
So. It was 3:36pm when I pulled into St. Rose San Martin campus. Vicky was waiting for me in the parking lot and we walked upstairs. The triage nurse checked us into triage and looked at me like I was stupid when I explained my condition to her. She had me urinate into a cup, which at this point I was so used to doing... and told me to lie down on the bed. She was really rude, now that I think about it. She kept looking at Vicky like we were lovers or something so I politely told her that Vicky was my sister and that my husband, who is the father of this child, was on his way to school. Well she pulled out her mechanism, which looked like a little test strip, and the dreaded clamp looking thing. She said it would hurt because they couldn't use any lubrication in case it would interfere with the specimen of what I thought was my water being broken. This was a painful process and when she pulled the paper out, it was bright blue. I asked what that meant and she said "Yup...your water has broken." Imagine the nervousness, excitement, and anxiety I felt at this point. So I asked what that meant from then on. The B**** then said "well... didn't you take any childbirth classes? Don't you know what it means when your water breaks?" OH HELL NO! Of course I know what it means when your water breaks, you imbecile! My question was more of a " Do I get admitted now? When will my baby be here?" type of question!!! So at this point, I called Adam and told him to hurry over to the hospital because AJ wanted out! I could hear the nervousness and excitement in Adam's voice... and he rushed right over. She then wheeled me into a nice room, which was more of a private suite at a nice hotel than a hospital room. Vicky called everyone we knew to tell them the exciting news!
I was officially admitted at 5:31pm. The nurse came in and checked me for dilation then too. I was already 5cm and 95% effaced. AAAAGGHHH!!!! 5 CM!! And I didn't feel a THING! She said they would start me on pitocin to bring on contractions since I wasn't having any. I had this monitor type contraption connected to my belly to monitor AJ's heartbeat, and a cuff on my arm to monitor my blood pressure and an IV pumping fluid into my body since I couldn't eat or drink anything. All I could have was ice chips. YUCK!
As I laid in that bed, I kept feeling my water leak more and more. I had to have them come change the sheets a couple of times. It was pretty disgust. I specifically remember Jackie coming and sitting next to me on the bed and I had to ask her to get up because I felt a huge gush! lol Embarrassing, but such is life. I couldn't help it. I didn't feel any contractions, so the nurse kept increasing my pitocin... at about 9pm, everyone left my room so I could try to rest. We promised everyone we would call as there was more progress. The next few hours went by pretty smoothly. At one point, they wanted to stick this little monitor thing on AJ's head so they went in down South and kept trying to shove this tiny thing in and it wasn't working. I don't even remember why they were doing it now, but I remember it hurt like heck! The nurse kept coming in and asking when I wanted my epidural. I was trying to hold off on it for as long as I could, so that I could have plenty when I needed it. She would literally come in every like 20 minutes and ask me. Finally I decided to give into it at about 2:30am when I was 8 cm dilated. Good thing I got it then. It's as if my body knew I had surrendered to it because the minute I said okay, I got hit with the MOST PAINFUL FEELING EVER!!! I can't even describe a contraction to you. I remember it hurt like hell, but the trauma of it was so intense, I don't remember it. It's the craziest thing in the world. I remember my anesthesiologist was from Australia and the nicest guy ever. I told him I loved him. lol. The epidural didn't hurt at all... Adam was the greatest coach. He took my mind off the present moment and kept me laughing till it hurt. I absolutely love him. But that's a different story.
Minutes after I got the epidural, I felt it kick in. But I was still feeling the contractions on my right side so I called the nurse in and Mr. Anesthesiologist came in and upped it on my right side. I was in divine heaven. The nurse checked me again and said we would start pushing in about 30 minutes! This is when the panic began for me. OMG... in 30 minutes, I was going to push the hardest I ever have, and I was going to try to bring my son into the light of day. I was going to bring my baby to life... to hold him in my arms and never let him go. Adam looked terrified and came to hold me in my bed. It was the most surreal moment ever. This was the last time it would be just the two of us... and we were ready for it. Our moment was ruined by the nurse rushing in, saying that the baby's heartrate dropped and I needed an oxygen mask to help bring it back up. So they strapped it on and she said we were going to push then. Ummm... RIGHT! I was traumatized! Adam made the calls home to have everyone come to the hospital to wait in the waiting room and the nurse got busy. She had me push on my own before the doctor came in and it was the hardest thing in my life! I have this stupid oxygen mask on, I was congested, and pushing wasn't happening too well for me. I was out of breath by the time she got to 4! And I had to push until 10! And there was no resting in between...only enough time for another deep breath. Pushing truly sucked the most out of everything. Not to mention that she and Adam kept yelling "PUSH HARDER!!" Hello?? What do you think I'm doing? Does this look like I'm just sitting here barely squeezing? I want this baby out more than either one of you. I'm pushing as hard as I can! Adam kept telling me I was right there... and with every push out, I lost breath and it was right back in he went. Then Dr. Foster came in and got the show on the road. He watched me push, and told me it looked like baby's head was a little big so he was going to cut me a little. Uh... thank god I was numb! But do what you gotta do Doc! lol So he cut me, and 4 pushes later... out came Adam Eugene Brown, Jr. All 8 pounds, 13 ounces and 20 inches of him! He made his debut into this world at 5:54am on Wednesday January 16, 2008. He was born exactly 2 weeks early. They took him out and put him on my belly.
Adam was holding both of us, and snapping pictures of this moment. I laid there and stared at him dumbfounded that I was holding my son. That's when I felt a warm rush on my arm and looked over and sure enough, my son was shooting out lasers of urine! That's my boy! He even managed to soak my nurse! It was so funny. I was laughing and crying. This was my son! I waited for this moment for such a long time and it was here. He was so beautiful and perfect. They took him over to the other side of the room to inject his eyes and run their tests and meanwhile doc was sewing me up and delivering my placenta which he tossed into this bucket... that was yucky! lol. Adam kept yelling me the feedback on his tests and he couldn't stop gushing over how beautiful his son was. I was so blessed.
About 10 minutes later, the entire family streamed into the room and it was THE MOST beautiful reunion I have ever witnessed in my entire life. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. Everyone took turns holding my beautiful son. Their grandson, nephew, and the newest addition to the family. It was truly emotional. The rest of that day was a whilrwind of breastfeeding and visitors.
Later that night, the nurse took AJ to the nursery to bathe him. I went with her and she said it looked like he was breathing faster than he should have been. Of course i asked what this meant and she said she wanted to have him monitored under the lights in there for about an hour. I was terrified. She then came to our room and said they were going to have to keep him in the NICU overnight for monitoring because his breathing was very rapid for a newborn. She said it could possibly be due to fluid in his lungs. She said they would have to wait for him to be admitted into the NICU and that the pediatrician on duty would come talk to us. She let us come see him and it was the most heartbreaking moment of my life. Here was my precious little boy, so new to the world and he was hooked up to an IV which was bigger than him, and he had a little feeding tube through his nose and patches of monitors all over his chest, and on his feet. I couldn't stop crying in there. I was literally bawling. Even Adam cried. This wasn't how we pictured our baby to spend his first night in the world! The pedi was amazing and we loved her right away. She answered all of our questions and we felt safe knowing AJ was in her hands. And the NICU staff was absolutely amazing also. They let us come see him every hour if we wanted to, and I was pumping milk for AJ then so they let me in to drop it off and they would call my room whenever he was awake so we could look at him. It was definately tough on us to see him like this, but it needed to be done. The final diagnosis was that he had fluid in his lungs and they needed to drain it. So they pumped his tiny little lungs with concentrated oxygen to help dry it out. Since his lungs were open, they were susceptible to infection, so they gave him an antibiotic through his IV. Because he was a newborn, they needed to keep him for 48 hours minimum to monitor him with this antibiotic. It was the longest 48 hours of my life! My doctor cleared me to go home on Thursday, but I begged to let me stay one more night so I could be with my baby. (they wouldn't let him in my room but at least I was down the hall!) So they let me stay. We were in there every chance we got. Finally, Friday night at 7pm I had to go home, and the pedi said as long as AJ's breathing was steady (which it improved more each day), she would clear him to come home on Saturday morning! YAY!! We went home and got everything ready for him. And me, being the obsessive freak I am, I set my alarm for 4am to drive to the hospital to see him. He happened to be awake and they let me feed him. Then I went back home after he fell asleep and we came back together with Adam at 9 to pick up our baby. They let him come home and our lives were complete.
And if you have made it this far, you deserve an award. This is the LONGEST thing I have every typed, but for my own personal memories, I needed to type it out. Now I feel better.
(And thank you AJ for taking a nap right now so I could get this all out!)
It all started on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008. My mom and I went for a nice long walk that morning at The Gardens Park in Summerlin. She was off work and we planned on a nice walk and then lunch. So we walked for a while and went to Kona Grill to eat. I felt nothing different all day. In fact, I felt better than I had in a while. At this point, I was 37 weeks and 6 days pregnant. (Considered full term).
After lunch, I went home to lie down because I was super tired. (what else was new?) So I did just that. Being at home, my new obsession became the Ellen Show. So I laid on the couch watching her, and cracking up laughing as usual when I felt a warm sensation down below. I thought I'd peed my pants. It was just a small trickle, but nonetheless, I went upstairs to rinse off, change and I came back downstairs. I sat down again....and same thing. Same trickle. At this point I remember thinking WTH is going on here? So I went BACK upstairs and did the same thing, laughing on my way up thinking "Is Ellen really that funny that I'm peeing my pants?" (When you're pregnant, ANYTHING can make you pee your pants though, lol..) At this point, Adam came through the door of the house and was getting ready to take a shower. I told him that I had to change my clothes like 3 times already because I kept peeing my pants, so he told me I should just sit on the toilet and pee. (MEN!!!) I told him I didn't even feel like I needed to go, it was just happening. Let me add in here that at no point did I think that this was my water breaking. I went back downstairs to fix Adam some lunch before he had to go to school and Vicky called me. I laughed and told her about my "warm sensation" and she said my water might have broken. I told her to google the symptoms and call me back. When she called back, she asked me a series of questions. "What color was the liquid? Did it have an odor? How much was there? How are you feeling..." and the list went on. Finally, I thought I better call my OB just to be safe. So I did and the triage nurse told me to head over to Labor and Delivery so they could do a fluid check. I went upstairs and told Adam this news and I remember we stood there looking at each other with this look of fear. He grabbed my hospital bag and the boppy and said let's take these just in case. Again, at this point I thought this was all just a false alarm but said, okay. So he walked me downstairs and loaded me into the car. Adam had school that night and since I was POSITIVE this wasn't the baby coming, I told him to go on to school (his union school is SUPER strict and holds his raises back a month for each class he misses!!) and that if it was the real deal, I would call him to come meet me at the hospital. He didn't want me to go alone, so I called Vicky to meet me there. After I got in the car, I called Jackie first. She didn't believe me when I told her, but said to keep her posted!
So. It was 3:36pm when I pulled into St. Rose San Martin campus. Vicky was waiting for me in the parking lot and we walked upstairs. The triage nurse checked us into triage and looked at me like I was stupid when I explained my condition to her. She had me urinate into a cup, which at this point I was so used to doing... and told me to lie down on the bed. She was really rude, now that I think about it. She kept looking at Vicky like we were lovers or something so I politely told her that Vicky was my sister and that my husband, who is the father of this child, was on his way to school. Well she pulled out her mechanism, which looked like a little test strip, and the dreaded clamp looking thing. She said it would hurt because they couldn't use any lubrication in case it would interfere with the specimen of what I thought was my water being broken. This was a painful process and when she pulled the paper out, it was bright blue. I asked what that meant and she said "Yup...your water has broken." Imagine the nervousness, excitement, and anxiety I felt at this point. So I asked what that meant from then on. The B**** then said "well... didn't you take any childbirth classes? Don't you know what it means when your water breaks?" OH HELL NO! Of course I know what it means when your water breaks, you imbecile! My question was more of a " Do I get admitted now? When will my baby be here?" type of question!!! So at this point, I called Adam and told him to hurry over to the hospital because AJ wanted out! I could hear the nervousness and excitement in Adam's voice... and he rushed right over. She then wheeled me into a nice room, which was more of a private suite at a nice hotel than a hospital room. Vicky called everyone we knew to tell them the exciting news!
I was officially admitted at 5:31pm. The nurse came in and checked me for dilation then too. I was already 5cm and 95% effaced. AAAAGGHHH!!!! 5 CM!! And I didn't feel a THING! She said they would start me on pitocin to bring on contractions since I wasn't having any. I had this monitor type contraption connected to my belly to monitor AJ's heartbeat, and a cuff on my arm to monitor my blood pressure and an IV pumping fluid into my body since I couldn't eat or drink anything. All I could have was ice chips. YUCK!
As I laid in that bed, I kept feeling my water leak more and more. I had to have them come change the sheets a couple of times. It was pretty disgust. I specifically remember Jackie coming and sitting next to me on the bed and I had to ask her to get up because I felt a huge gush! lol Embarrassing, but such is life. I couldn't help it. I didn't feel any contractions, so the nurse kept increasing my pitocin... at about 9pm, everyone left my room so I could try to rest. We promised everyone we would call as there was more progress. The next few hours went by pretty smoothly. At one point, they wanted to stick this little monitor thing on AJ's head so they went in down South and kept trying to shove this tiny thing in and it wasn't working. I don't even remember why they were doing it now, but I remember it hurt like heck! The nurse kept coming in and asking when I wanted my epidural. I was trying to hold off on it for as long as I could, so that I could have plenty when I needed it. She would literally come in every like 20 minutes and ask me. Finally I decided to give into it at about 2:30am when I was 8 cm dilated. Good thing I got it then. It's as if my body knew I had surrendered to it because the minute I said okay, I got hit with the MOST PAINFUL FEELING EVER!!! I can't even describe a contraction to you. I remember it hurt like hell, but the trauma of it was so intense, I don't remember it. It's the craziest thing in the world. I remember my anesthesiologist was from Australia and the nicest guy ever. I told him I loved him. lol. The epidural didn't hurt at all... Adam was the greatest coach. He took my mind off the present moment and kept me laughing till it hurt. I absolutely love him. But that's a different story.
Minutes after I got the epidural, I felt it kick in. But I was still feeling the contractions on my right side so I called the nurse in and Mr. Anesthesiologist came in and upped it on my right side. I was in divine heaven. The nurse checked me again and said we would start pushing in about 30 minutes! This is when the panic began for me. OMG... in 30 minutes, I was going to push the hardest I ever have, and I was going to try to bring my son into the light of day. I was going to bring my baby to life... to hold him in my arms and never let him go. Adam looked terrified and came to hold me in my bed. It was the most surreal moment ever. This was the last time it would be just the two of us... and we were ready for it. Our moment was ruined by the nurse rushing in, saying that the baby's heartrate dropped and I needed an oxygen mask to help bring it back up. So they strapped it on and she said we were going to push then. Ummm... RIGHT! I was traumatized! Adam made the calls home to have everyone come to the hospital to wait in the waiting room and the nurse got busy. She had me push on my own before the doctor came in and it was the hardest thing in my life! I have this stupid oxygen mask on, I was congested, and pushing wasn't happening too well for me. I was out of breath by the time she got to 4! And I had to push until 10! And there was no resting in between...only enough time for another deep breath. Pushing truly sucked the most out of everything. Not to mention that she and Adam kept yelling "PUSH HARDER!!" Hello?? What do you think I'm doing? Does this look like I'm just sitting here barely squeezing? I want this baby out more than either one of you. I'm pushing as hard as I can! Adam kept telling me I was right there... and with every push out, I lost breath and it was right back in he went. Then Dr. Foster came in and got the show on the road. He watched me push, and told me it looked like baby's head was a little big so he was going to cut me a little. Uh... thank god I was numb! But do what you gotta do Doc! lol So he cut me, and 4 pushes later... out came Adam Eugene Brown, Jr. All 8 pounds, 13 ounces and 20 inches of him! He made his debut into this world at 5:54am on Wednesday January 16, 2008. He was born exactly 2 weeks early. They took him out and put him on my belly.
Adam was holding both of us, and snapping pictures of this moment. I laid there and stared at him dumbfounded that I was holding my son. That's when I felt a warm rush on my arm and looked over and sure enough, my son was shooting out lasers of urine! That's my boy! He even managed to soak my nurse! It was so funny. I was laughing and crying. This was my son! I waited for this moment for such a long time and it was here. He was so beautiful and perfect. They took him over to the other side of the room to inject his eyes and run their tests and meanwhile doc was sewing me up and delivering my placenta which he tossed into this bucket... that was yucky! lol. Adam kept yelling me the feedback on his tests and he couldn't stop gushing over how beautiful his son was. I was so blessed.
About 10 minutes later, the entire family streamed into the room and it was THE MOST beautiful reunion I have ever witnessed in my entire life. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. Everyone took turns holding my beautiful son. Their grandson, nephew, and the newest addition to the family. It was truly emotional. The rest of that day was a whilrwind of breastfeeding and visitors.
Later that night, the nurse took AJ to the nursery to bathe him. I went with her and she said it looked like he was breathing faster than he should have been. Of course i asked what this meant and she said she wanted to have him monitored under the lights in there for about an hour. I was terrified. She then came to our room and said they were going to have to keep him in the NICU overnight for monitoring because his breathing was very rapid for a newborn. She said it could possibly be due to fluid in his lungs. She said they would have to wait for him to be admitted into the NICU and that the pediatrician on duty would come talk to us. She let us come see him and it was the most heartbreaking moment of my life. Here was my precious little boy, so new to the world and he was hooked up to an IV which was bigger than him, and he had a little feeding tube through his nose and patches of monitors all over his chest, and on his feet. I couldn't stop crying in there. I was literally bawling. Even Adam cried. This wasn't how we pictured our baby to spend his first night in the world! The pedi was amazing and we loved her right away. She answered all of our questions and we felt safe knowing AJ was in her hands. And the NICU staff was absolutely amazing also. They let us come see him every hour if we wanted to, and I was pumping milk for AJ then so they let me in to drop it off and they would call my room whenever he was awake so we could look at him. It was definately tough on us to see him like this, but it needed to be done. The final diagnosis was that he had fluid in his lungs and they needed to drain it. So they pumped his tiny little lungs with concentrated oxygen to help dry it out. Since his lungs were open, they were susceptible to infection, so they gave him an antibiotic through his IV. Because he was a newborn, they needed to keep him for 48 hours minimum to monitor him with this antibiotic. It was the longest 48 hours of my life! My doctor cleared me to go home on Thursday, but I begged to let me stay one more night so I could be with my baby. (they wouldn't let him in my room but at least I was down the hall!) So they let me stay. We were in there every chance we got. Finally, Friday night at 7pm I had to go home, and the pedi said as long as AJ's breathing was steady (which it improved more each day), she would clear him to come home on Saturday morning! YAY!! We went home and got everything ready for him. And me, being the obsessive freak I am, I set my alarm for 4am to drive to the hospital to see him. He happened to be awake and they let me feed him. Then I went back home after he fell asleep and we came back together with Adam at 9 to pick up our baby. They let him come home and our lives were complete.
And if you have made it this far, you deserve an award. This is the LONGEST thing I have every typed, but for my own personal memories, I needed to type it out. Now I feel better.
(And thank you AJ for taking a nap right now so I could get this all out!)
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