Brooke Elaine Allen
Our sweet little girl joined our family at 11:07 on January 22, 2013. We could not be happier with our new addition.
Last week our family was SICK! It started on Tuesday when a cough I have had for a long time moved into my head and made me feel terrible. I was coughing so hard every night it was making me throw up which is the only time I have this whole pregnancy. Mikey got it about the same time waking up in the middle of the night screaming for us to "fix his eyes" which were glued shut. On Wednesday James got sent home from school with "pink eye", (I really didn't think he had it yet because he wasn't sick like the other boys) and sometime in there Billy got it too. Doug even took Friday off of work to take care of us all. So with all this sickness in our house I was really praying Brooke would hold off a week to make her appearance so we were all feeling better.
My mom made it in town Sunday night (we were all feeling almost better at this point) and it felt like we would just be waiting around for Brooke to decide to join us. Monday was my official due date, but lets be honest how many babies are actually born then. James didn't have school and we just kind of had a lazy day getting our house back in order. Monday night I was having some contractions, but didn't think it would amount to anything since I had been having them almost every night for weeks. But just after we went to bed, at 11:30 I woke up thinking, "Oh dang, my water just broke." (I was still wanting a few days to get better before we had to go to the hospital). So after packing our hospital bag, waking up my mom and calling a friend to help give a blessing, we sat around for an hour or so debating when we should actually go to the hospital. Finally at about 1am I decided we should just go and get it over with since I wasn't going to be doing any sleeping at home.
We checked into the hospital, the nurse checked me I was already dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced which is somewhat of a miracle since I have NEVER actually gone into labor on my own. About 4 am I asked for some drugs for the pain so I could sleep and slept until 6. At 6:30 they made me get up and walk around the hospital. That was the worst part. I had so much pressure on my hips that walking was super painful and every time we got back to the waiting area I had to sit for a while. After walking for an hour I asked for the epidural. I was only to a 4 at this point but in a lot of pain so I figured we might as well go ahead. About 8:30 or 9 I had the epidural in, and it only worked on the right side of my body so I had to lay on my left side to try to get it to work on that side. Finally at about 10:30 I was so tired of laying on my side I tried to move to a more comfortable position which made it wear off completely and I could feel every contraction. I finally called the nurse in at 11 to tell her it just hurt too much and to see if there was anything we could do about it, thinking I still had 4 to 5 more hours of this. She checked to see where we were and said, "well you are at a 10, that is why it hurts so much, lets start pushing and get this baby here." They called in the midwife and about 5 minutes later I was holding our baby girl!
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| Billy meeting his sister |
Once we got settled in a recovery room and I got more normal looking we had the boys come meet their new sister. James immediately walked up to me and Brooke and said, "Did you get Brooke out of your tummy then you got fixed?" Then he was done and off exploring the restrooms.
Michael and Billy were much more interested. Billy especially kept smiling at her and wanted to hold her and look at her.
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| Billy excited to hold Brooke |
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| Michael holding Brooke |
My plan was to stay two days in the hospital and get plenty of rest before going home. But after the first night of not sleeping because Brooke was up all night we decided I should just come home and rest because there would be more people to help in the middle of the night and I could get more rest. So Brooke came home Wednesday evening and the boys have been loving having her around. James however did tell me several times on Wednesday to go back to the hospital. I think he wanted to go explore some more restrooms.
2 comments:
Love hearing the details! So glad she made it safely. Thanks for sharing! :)
It's great to hear "the rest of the story". So glad you and Brooke are both healthy and doing well. We are very excited to meet that little cutie!! We love all of you!
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