On Friday, June 22, we welcomed our little girl, Brooke Louise into our family! We chose the name Brooke, mainly because we like the name (she's not named for Brooke Shields or anyone, ha ha), and Louise is my mom's middle name. Turns out it is a middle name for some of Sean's family as well, so it's a good middle name for our little girl. We know she will have a fun personality because she started her life with a surprise for us. She was scheduled to be born the following week on the 29th by C-Section, just like her older brothers. However, she had plans of her own.
Sean was scheduled to leave for San Diego that afternoon for a conference, and my Mom was driving down from Salt Lake to be with me and the boys while Sean was out of town. Sean went into the office early so he would have time to come home and get ready for his flight. I was in bed, but Gabe was awake and watching TV in my room. I dozed off a bit and woke around 8:00 am when Gabe asked me, "Are these your vitamins?" I looked up to see him standing on top of Sean's laundry basket, climbing up to the dresser to get my vitamins. I jumped up out of bed to get him down and as I stood there by the dresser, I felt something that wasn't quite right. Very soon I had a little trickle down my leg and I quickly took a few steps to the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and stayed there for a couple minutes as the amniotic fluid gushed out of me (Sorry if that's too much info for you)! Finally, I felt I could get up to grab my phone, so I did, and then headed straight for the shower and called Sean as fluid continued to leave my body. I told him I was sorry he would probably be missing his trip, but that I was quite sure my water broke and we would be having a baby that day instead. He said he'd be right home. I told him to swing by the Schwarze's house on the way home and pick up a babysitter for the boys. Fortunately, our friends the Schwarzes, have a few girls who babysit, and they had said they would be happy to come over if the baby decided to come early. Well, she did, so I called (still standing in the shower) and Cheryl said she would have one of her daughters ready when Sean got there. About 15 minutes later, Sean was home, and Sarah Schwarze was there to babysit. What a relief! Both boys were awake by then, so we told them we were headed to the hospital to have their baby sister. Soren was sad and wanted to go with us, but we promised he could come visit later. Gabe happily bid us farewell, and Soren was grumpy, but I'm sure he was just fine as soon as we left and he could watch Curious George on TV. Off we went to Southern Hills Hospital to have a baby!
It was almost 9:00 am as we headed out. I called my mom to let her know to just take her time getting down here, but that we would probably have a baby by the time she got here. She was excited! Sean was in contact with his parents as well, and they were excited to come down from St. George to spell off Sarah and watch the boys and come see the new baby. Sean's sister, Edie, was also able to come with them, so we were lucky to have family around to help out and welcome little Brooke.
I called Dr. Swainston's office to make sure he was in town and they said he was already out delivering a baby, so I was glad he would be nearby. We got to the hospital and they checked me into a room to run the tests which we had gone through the Sunday before when I thought my water broke (I will probably write about that in another post). That time was a false alarm, but this time turned out to be the real thing! They were in touch with Dr. Swainston who was already making a second delivery and said he'd be there by noon. I wasn't having any contractions or anything, so Sean and I just sat there in the room watching TV and he cancelled his flight and made a bunch of changes for his trip to San Diego. The nurses had to stick me with the needle several times before they could get my IV in. For some reason my veins like to hide. That wasn't so fun, but other than that, things were fine.
By noon, Dr. Swainston and his office partner, Dr. Martin, were there and we were under way. I was getting the anesthesia which was a huge, uncomfortable shot in my back, and it made me nausiated. Swainston said that was good news because the shot was working. Like that made me feel better or someting! Anyway, the nausia was controlled and Dr. Swainston started to play music in the delivery room. He makes it a pretty entertaining experience. The first song was "I'm Comin' Out" and then he had some Frank Sinatra and then some other songs I don't remember, but by the time the baby was born, the song "Isn't She Lovely" was on. Sean was in there with me and we were all talking and joking around the whole time. Swainston and Martin are pretty funny guys. All went well and Brooke was born at 12:43 pm. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 10 oz. and was 19 inches long. She let us know she was there with a gentle cry at first, but got really loud soon after she was born. She was getting her lungs working and all was well!
This is a lot longer post than I planned, but now it's time to feed a hungry little baby, so the next post will be about her first visitors in the hospital and how things have been going for the first week of her life. We are a happy family!
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