Brielle's birth story

For those of you who are interested, here is the LONG version of Brielle's birth story :-) Skip down to the pictures if you want!
We arrived at the hospital at 6am and spent the first hour on "housekeeping" activites...filling out paperwork, etc.  At 7am my nurse for the day arrived and  I was so happy to see that she was really really nice. So far with both of my deliveries at this hospital I've had awesome nurses! I was the  only  person in all of labor  and delivery too LOL...so everyone waited  on me hand and foot the whole day. She informed me that I was still only 1-2 cm dialated and "soft"...baby hadn't dropped, etc. She called my ob who said I probably should have come in the night before to have a cervical  ripening agent of some kind...at which point I was like "the other ob who I saw last said you guys didn't do that at night!" Apparently it's a difference of opinion among the obs haha. So at this point I'm thinking "oh great, now I'll be here for like  12 hours just laying around waiting for that to work"....but luckily my ob decided to just go straight to pitocin since I am a 2nd time mom, and just see if it'd work. So around 7:30 they started the pitocin and then my ob came and broke my water at 8:30am. That  was soooo wierd! With  Raya my water broke at home on it's own and it really wasn't that much. This time I swear to God a swimming pool emptied on my bed LOL! After that my contractions picked up, but they really didn't "hurt"....they were just really tight and made it a little hard  to breathe...and then during every contraction MORE water would gush to the point where even my socks at the end of the bed kept getting soaked haha. It  was  pretty funny. I  decided to wait on the epidural since I wasn't  in actual  pain or anything, and then around 10:30am decided I might as well get it now. Thankfully the  epi  guy
was really nice and I explained how my epi  got taken away last time because  of low blood pressure and  he assured me he'd do everything he could to make sure that  didn't happen this time. My blood pressure did run lower throughout my labor, but never enough that they had  to take my epi away this time...yippee! Once my epi  was in I  watched Animal Planet and napped until noon, when  my ob checked me and said I was now about 4-5 cm and 60% effaced, and baby had  started to drop.  I was super excited b/c at that point it seemed the pitocin was working just  fine on its own! I was nervous about the  induction b/c you hear a lot of horror stories about long labors ending in csections, etc. and I was just praying things would work out for me since I had such a fast 1st delivery. After that Lee  and I  played  board games and watched  TV and around 2:45pm my nurse came to check me and to my surprise I was 8cm, 100% effaced,
and baby had dropped! So she left and said to let her know when I felt like I needed to push. Well  it was soooo hard  for me to tell b/c I honestly couldn't feel  anything! Every once in awhile a spot on my left side would gain some feeling and I'd just push my  little epi button and get more meds and then I'd be competely numb again haha. So like 10 minutes later at about 2:55pm I told lee that I thought *maybe* I felt a little something but since  it had  only been 10 minutes I figured probably not. I decided to call the nurse back  just in case and sure enough I was 10cm and baby's head was right there...it was time! So they quick got the ob in and I pushed for only 1 contraction and she was out!!!!!!! It was crazy.  I had no idea until yesterday just  how totally  screwed I had been with Raya's labor and my lack of epi LOL. I  really hadn't thought Raya's delivery was THAT bad at the time, but  in retrospect all you epi moms had  it made....I was totally missing out!!! :-) I was literally chatting and laughing as I did my one push...love that epi man! Once  they handed Brielle to me I could tell immediately she was sooooo tiny compared to Raya! I heard one of the nurses say
"Oh yeah, I bet she's at least 5lbs" ...and I'm thinking "WHAT?!" haha. I could also tell immediately that she looked like Raya and Lee again...Mama never gets any genetic credit! At least they're cute though right? :-P I held Brielle while I got stitched up (Even though she was  a smaller baby since she came out so fast I re-tore where I had with Raya....but not nearly  as bad) and then they took her to weigh her  and  clean her  up. The official verdict? 6lbs 7.7oz and 18 3/4 inches long....who woulda guessed it?! Her head was 13inches. She got  a 9 out of 9 on her APGAR so she did really well.

Good birth story right? haha. Since then she's been a pretty good breastfeeder. Eating every 2 hours, but sometimes it takes me a good 15 minutes to get her  woken up enough to eat well. She also is a very "gaggy" baby and especially when she doesn't burp well she will start acting like she's choking and she gags a lot. They tell me that is pretty normal. She's a little  jaundiced, but  I'm hoping we don't  have to do billiblankets or anything like that. We'll see what  they say tomorrow. I'm supposed to be discharged tomorrow morning sometime. I  was able  to get a good  6  hours of sleep last night too.I  sent  her  to the  nurses station and had them bring her  to me every 2 hours to eat, so that worked out pretty well. I'm not  looking forward to going home and not being able to send her  to the nurses!!! Maybe I'll  send her  downstairs  to Grandma F. until she leaves Saturday :-)

Ok, NOW FOR THE  PICTURES!!!

Very first look  at my baby  girl, fresh out of the oven!

Proud Daddy

Lots of hair! ....but not in front :-P

Raya came up and met baby sister last night!

She's got eyes that open and close!!

Hugs for sissy

...a tight squeeze haha

Grandma got to visit last night too!

Mama loved gettin cuddles from her #1 girl! And Raya loved Mama's straw!! :-P

Some pics  Mama took  after everyone  went home for the night...

Here are a few pictures  from today, the 12th. She's still doing great! Daddy and baby look a little rough  in this pic haha...but  it's the only one I have of them from today.

Outfit from Grandma F.! She kinda swims in newborn stuff!

PISSED OFF!

Now for fun, here are some side-by-side comparisons of Raya and Brielle, to show  how much they look alike!

You can REALLY see it here....both wearing the same hat...they could almost be twins! Raya is on the left, Brielle is on the right.

Here is one comparing their  size...Raya  on the  left, with her chubbier belly and face hehe.

And lastly, this shows the main difference  between the two girls....their hairlines! When Brielle has a hat on she looks a ton like  Raya did, but without hats you can tell them apart much easier lol



That's all for today...thanks for checkin out my new baby girl's blog! :-)