Brooke’s Birth Story

Its hard to believe that a week ago yesterday Brooke was born. Its crazy how fast time flies and yet how long ago it seems as well. The labor process for me was very quick and I had my mom write down little notes about my labor, so that I wouldn’t forget.

On April 1st, Kevin and I went to my doctors appointment for a ultrasound and to see exactly what was going with our little miss. The previous week, they checked my cervix and I was already 80% effaced, so my doctor wanted me rest and to come in for the ultrasound. At the appointment, we were relieved to find out that she was measuring around 5 pounds, 6 ounces and that her lungs were already functioning. We also found that I had moved to 80-90% effaced and 2cm dilated. My doctor told me that I needed to work from home and “rest”. She didn’t officially put my on “bed” rest, just the “rest” part. Our goal was to try to keep her in for another two-three weeks, and we set our next appointment for April 8th.

This was a pretty hard reality, because this time of year is one of my busiest at work. I set out working from home for the rest of the week and got into a rhythm. Then, it was Tuesday, April 7th.

I woke up at 6:30am to some mild cramping. I kind of thought that it might be contractions, but I wasn’t completely convinced. When Kevin woke up for work at 7:15, I told him I thought I might be having contractions, but that I would track them and let him know. I sent him off to work and continued working from home. Around 11am, my contractions were getting more intense. I had been tracking them all morning, but honestly, I wasn’t convinced I was in labor still. I told Kevin that I was going to get in the shower and see if the contractions let up. After the shower, I told Kevin that I probably needed him to come home, I was having more pain and the contractions were getting closer together.

I continued getting ready after my shower, fixed my hair, did my make up and packed the rest of my hospital bag. When Kevin walked through the door around noon, he was bursting with energy and excitement. He quickly packed his bag and got all of our stuff in the car. He was beaming, I was silent (in pain). It was so cute seeing how excited he was about the possibility of his baby girl coming. Even as we were driving to Chick-fil-a (I wanted to stop and eat while I could in case I really was in labor), I still wasn’t 100% sure that I was in real labor. I guess it was denial, because looking back, it seems so obvious.

Throughout all of this, Kevin was communicating with our parents and they started making their way to San Antonio. I just remember being nervous we were getting to the hospital too soon, that I wouldn’t be admitted or that our parents would have to turn around. We arrived at the hospital around 1:30pm.

We went to triage, they hooked me up to the monitors and started asking us a ton of questions. Kevin answered a lot the questions when I having contractions, because I really didn’t want talk when I was having one. The nurse checked my progress and said that I was dilated to 3cm and for sure in labor. She notified my doctor and started going through the process of admitting us.

She put in my IV, sent off my blood to the lab and got us situated in a delivery room. At 4pm, my doctor came in and broke my water. At this point, I was 6cm dilated and the contractions were pretty painful. She immediately asked if I wanted an epidural and told the nurse to get it for me ASAP since everything was going so quick. By 4:30, I had my epidural and things were feeling much better. Getting the epidural and her breaking my water were the most painful.

At around 5pm, my parents and Kevin’s arrived and we visited with them for a few minutes before the nurse came back in to check my progress. After a few minutes of her checking everything, she said it was go time at around 6pm. I started pushing and she was born at 6:36pm.

Kevin, my mom and his mom were in the room when she was born. The NICU team was in the room to check Brooke, since she was only 34 weeks 6 days. They let all of us hold her for a few minutes, then took her to NICU for monitoring.

Overall, the process was so quick. We didn’t have any downtime at all in the hospital to let many friends know or even have a few minutes to ourselves to process what was happening. I am super thankful for the quick delivery and they warned me that if we have another baby I need to come to the hospital much sooner.

We are beyond excited and thankful for our Little Miss Brooke and after 5 1/2 days in NICU, we got to bring her home on Monday, April 13th. Our hearts are extremely full!

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