Baby Brennan

As I am sure all of you know, Baby Brennan James made his arrival at 9:26pm on Thursday, February 11th. He weighed 8lbs. 15 oz. (only one oz. from being a 9lb. baby!!!) and was 19.5 inches long.

Here is a recap of our last few days.

Thursday morning I woke up thinking my water might have broken. I completely felt like "that woman" because I had already been to the hospital Tuesday night and was sent home and now I wasn't sure if my water had broken or not. Of course I googled facts about water breaking and laid down for half an hour to see if when I stood up there was any additional leakage. I felt like there was, so I called my doctor. She asked me to come into the office after lunch so she could do a labor check. Kyle came home and we got to the office just after 1:30pm. My water hadn't broken, but I had made some progress since Tuesday night because I was dilated 2 cm. I was also having pretty intense contractions every 2-3 minutes at this point. She asked me to come back around 3:30 to check my progress again, so we went home and came back. At that visit, I was dilated 3 cm. and my contractions were really starting to hurt. We were told to go to the hospital!

We checked into our room at 4:15pm and everything else went very quickly. I was able to breathe through my contractions even though they were painful. I quickly progressed to 4 cm. and decided a little after that check that I was ready for an epidural. I was hesitant because I didn't want it to slow down my labor or make it more difficult to push. When I got my epidural, I was 7 cm. and the nurses were very impressed that I made it that far without drugs. The epidural was wonderful and it didn't slow down my labor at all! My contractions were super strong and close together, but I barely felt any of them. At 8:50pm it was time to start pushing. I was still able to push really well even with the epidural. Just a short 36 minutes later, Brennan was here!

The rest of that night is pretty much a blur. They put Brennan straight on my chest and Kyle cut his umbilical cord. Kyle took lots of pictures while they were doing Brennan's stats and bath. He nursed several times that night with some difficulty, but the nurses were a great help. Kyle went home Thursday night to take care of the pets and I didn't get much sleep.

Friday, Brennan got circumcised and had a hearing test done. He was very stubborn about nursing after that and we ended up having to give him a little formula. Then we were blessed to have a new nurse come on duty, Mel. She was awesome and Brennan picked right back up on the nursing thing with her help. Our preacher and one of his daughters came to visit and later Eric and Christie visited. The babies typically just stay in the room with the mom's at the hospital, but you can have them go to the nursery. Since nursing had been frustrating, I decided I need a better night's sleep, so I sent him to the nursery Friday night. They brought him in 2 times to nurse through the night and he did great. Then he came back at 6am for good. They did some labs overnight on Friday and thought Brennan looked a little jaundice. They would have to take more blood Saturday afternoon before discharging us.

Today has been a great day. Brennan nursed well each time (although he is a very sleepy nurser). His blood test came back fine, so we were able to be discharged. We have had a great night so far at home. Thanks for dinner Eric and Christie! We will see how the overnight goes!

We feel very blessed with our new baby boy! We thank everyone for their prayers and support and can't wait to show him off. Enjoy these pictures!

He's here!


Life is rough!


Family of three!


So handsome!


First hair wash!


First bath!


Mom and baby!


Pucker up!


Ready to go home!


We are home!