Introducing Brinley Joy

She is finally here!!!!

We are so excited to introduce our beautiful little girl, Brinley Joy, born on June 9, 2013 at 3:06 p.m. Weighing in at 8 lbs. 6 oz. and 21 inches long. She is absolutely perfect and already has both mommy and daddy wrapped around her adorable little fingers.

Her entrance into the world definitely did not go as planned, but looking back, I know that everything happened exactly the way that it was meant to. Funny, as I began writing this blog post, I realized that the last one that I had done was on Thursday night. Little did I know then, but my labor would start overnight that night.

Not to get into too much detail, but I started showing signs of early labor at about 1:30 that morning. Contractions started shortly afterwards, and I began timing them about 3 a.m. They started about 20-30 minutes apart and were pretty mild. Feeling like stomach/diarrhea cramps, like everyone says. I was up for a few hours and then went back to bed to try and get some more rest. They were strong enough that they woke me up and I kept timing them. By the time Matt left for work at 6:30 a.m. they were about 10 minutes apart. He was super excited and wanted to come right home from work but I told him that this could just be false labor and that I would call him if I needed him.

He called to tell me he was leaving at 10:30 a.m. and I lied and told him the contractions had stopped so that he would stay at work : ) I also didn't tell any of my co-workers and continued to work from home all day, including attending several meetings. When I had a contraction I would just kind of agree with whatever the other person was saying, or tried to stay quiet. I sent my doula a text and she advised me to ignore all the early labor stuff and try and rest as much as possible. So when Matt got home, I told him the contractions were still happening and we took a nap. They were getting a bit more intense, but I did manage to sleep a bit in between them. We also went for a walk and were going to go out to dinner but I didn't feel up to it. I finished packing the birth center bag, took a bath and blow dried my hair, and we ate some Panera for dinner and watched inspiring birth stories from the Business of Being Born Part II.

We went to bed that night thinking that either a) labor would stop or b) things would pick up and be the real deal. Around 11:30, I began to not be able to lay down through the contractions and found that I needed to be up and moving to get through them. At this time they were about 8 minutes apart. Around midnight, I got Matt up so he could help me and squeeze my hips to get through them. Around 1 or 2 a.m., I ended up on the toilet and vomiting at the same time, lovely, I know, and thought it best to call my doula for advice. It was getting very difficult to manage on my own and the pain was way more intense than I had anticipated. At this point, they were 5 minutes apart but we were waiting on the magic 3 minutes apart for 1 hour, lasting 1 minute in length before going into the birth center. She told me that it sounded like it was too early for me to head in and to try and get some rest.

Well I certainly tried, but ended up just fighting through all of the contractions one at a time. The night was the longest of my life! Finally, at 8 a.m. I begged everyone to meet at the birth center to see how much progress I had made. I was pretty miserable at this point and exhausted from not sleeping at all Friday night or much on Thursday night.

I was hugely discouraged to find out that I was only 3 cm. I had been 2 cm before labor even started! I was ready to check into the hospital right then and there, but my fabulous birth team encouraged me to try and stick it out and labor more at home. My midwife sent me home with a sleeping pill prescription to try and get some rest. I ended up taking it but was on the toilet every 5 minutes since the meds seemed to make my mind rest and forget that I was in labor, some part of my brain knew what was going on and so I kept sitting on the toilet during contractions. Matt watched me get up and down like this for about 4 hours.

After the meds wore off, I began laboring again at home. Some of the contractions got so intense that I would scream through them. It didn't help too much but made me feel better in the moment. We decided to try and go to the chiropractor to speed stuff up and meet back at the birth center at 9 p.m. to see what the additional 12 hours of hard labor at home had done for me. By the time we were leaving for the chiro though, my contractions sped up to 2-4 minutes apart so we decided to head right to the birth center. They checked me again and I was 4 cm.

I was actually sort of relieved to here that because at that point I was so mentally and physically exhausted that I knew I needed some help getting through this and wanted to go to the hospital. I was afraid of being too tired to push and as I went through my wish list of things, avoiding a c section was more important to me than delivering naturally at the birth center at that point. I had struggled through 24 hours of contractions around 5 minutes apart of less and felt ready to get some help.

I walked over to the hospital and my fantastic midwife and doula came with me. By the time we got there, contractions were right on top of eachother at about 2 min apart. The wonderful nurse, Jenny, swore I was in transition and was 7-8 cm. I told her to just wait! That this is what had been going on for days. And sure enough, when they checked me I was only 5. Turns out my body rocks at contracting, just not dialating! Ha! The other weird thing was that my contractions would come in threes. There would be one really intense one, then a few minutes later another intense one, and then an additional one immediately afterwards. It was like a "bonus" contraction.

When I got checked in, they had to monitor me for 30 minutes to make sure the baby was fine. That was pretty tough as I had to sit still throughout the whole thing. They asked me if I wanted an epidural or to try this morphine sleep thing and I said I would think about it. One more contraction later and I found myself asking for the epidural, pronto! I had to wait an additional 30 minutes or so while I got an IV bag of fluids in me but finally the anesthesiologist showed up and I could have kissed him!

To be perfectly honest, none of the reasons why I had wanted to give birth naturally was that I was afraid of getting an epidural. But at that point, I didn't care! I was literally counting how many contractions I would have to endure before I could get relief. Around 11:30, I finally got the epidural and began to rest. It was a glorious moment and I thanked God for modern medicine! Even though I had been so anti-interventions the whole time. I knew I needed it to get through and I had made peace with that decision.

Right after I got the epidural my midwife checked me and accidentally broke my water. There was meconium in it which reinforced my decision to come to the hospital since that would have required a transfer any way.

I labored on my own with just the epidural, no pitocin for the next several hours resting for 2-3 hours in between. Then somewhere between 4-6 a.m. I developed a fever and my heart rate and the baby's heart rate increased. They determined that I had some sort of infection and administered two different antibiotics. This meant that the baby would need to go to special care though, right after delivery. I didn't quite get what that meant at the time...

After the infection scare, my contractions slowed a bit since the uterus is a muscle and fevers tend to weaken muscles. My midwife thought that it was important to move things along, so decided to get me started on a low dose of pitocin. I agreed, since I trusted that she was only using the most minimal interventions necessary. She had afterall let me labor all night long and my progress on my body's time frame, not some standards of how quickly you should be dialating. For that, I was super grateful!

When the started the pitocin, I was already 8-9 cm and just needed the extra boost to get me the rest of the way. Around noon, I was ready to push and very excited to meet this little one! I also thought (erroneously) that since I had an epidural, pushing would be a breeze and I wouldn't feel anything! Turns out, the epidural was so awesome that I could still feel and move my legs, feel contractions, etc, but just not pain. So pressure from a baby coming out? Oh yea, could definitely feel that!

Pushing was honestly the hardest thing that I have ever done. I went through so many emotions but ultimately had to decide to just give it everything that I had and get through it. My life and my baby's life depended on it. There did come a point when the baby's heart rate dropped and my midwife looked at me and said we need to have this baby right now. I don't remember being scared, just determined. I pushed as hard as I could with every contraction and fought through all the pain and discomfort. I was so exhausted at this point that I was literally falling asleep between contractions and muttering incoherent thoughts. Oh the joys! : )

After 3 hours of pushing, baby finally entered the world. I had refused to reach down and feel the head and was waiting for someone to say "the head is out" like they do on TV, but no one ever did so I was frankly shocked when she came gushing out. It was an incredible feeling of relief and disbelief that I had actually done it.

Since we had the meconium to deal with they told me that if she didn't cry right away they'd have to immediately cut the cord and take her over for suctioning. Apparently she did let out a tiny cry but the other nurses in the room didn't hear it and she was whisked away any way. By the time they got her to the table to suction though, she was already wailing. A few minutes later, they put her on my chest and I finally got to meet her.

It was incredible seeing her for the first time. I couldn't believe that she was here and I had someone survived all of that to bring her into the world. Matt and I were in love with her immediately.

We spent the next two days going back and forth between my recovery room and Brinley's room in special care. She had her own room with her own nurses but it was really hard seeing her all hooked up to monitors, with an IV, etc. Turned out she was just fine and never showed any signs of an infection. We also had to fight really hard to breast feed and not supplement with formula but we worked at it and she became the best latcher ever after the first 24 hrs. The lactation consultant visited and couldn't believe how well she was doing.

The day we were supposed to go home, the nurse practitioner began telling us that they were concerned about her low urine output and may want to keep her longer. I explained that since my milk hadn't come in this was typical and she would not be producing the 6-8 wet/poopy diapers today that they would be expecting. They just couldn't seem to get that though and we went around and around in circles until finally I just caved in and said "give her some formula so she can pee and we can go home!" I cried the whole time Matt was giving her the formula as it was the last thing on my birth plan that we had hung on to and now was compromised.

However, it all worked out, she peed for them, they let us go home and my milk came in the next day. We immediately discontinued the formula and she's been eating like a champ ever since. I think that the 24 hours of exclusive breast feeding in the hospital plus the fact that she was a more mature baby, 41 weeks and 5 days, made her handle of of this with ease. I am so grateful that it worked out that way!

Like I said, not at all what we expected our birth story to be, but I believe it was exactly the way God designed it. In the end we had a health baby and a healthy mama and we are so thrilled to finally have our Brinley Joy home with us.

Here are a few pics from birth and hospital stay:

Wailing away!

Daddy is smitten 

A pic with her birth stats

Meeting her for the first time

Such a little sweetie

First visitor, Grandma Ann and Aunt Grace

Nana Jeanne is in love as well!

Daddy can't get enough of the precious girl

Unexpected perk of delivering in the hospital, newborn photos 

Mommy lover her precious girl

During her hearing test, looks scarier than it was

Matt being silly and posing in my hospital room

Getting ready to come home, wearing the traditional Leibrock homecoming outfit worn by Matt and his siblings and made by Great-Grandma Vanden Boom

Where Brinley Joy spent the first two days of her life

Mommy was thrilled to be taking her little one home

Here we go! Matt and I were so excited to get out of the hospital but as we drove away, we were like "oh crap" now what???? : )