Well, after a roller coaster ride, we have done it. I’ll let Ashli give a more complete account of our trials and tribulations of the last few days, but I’ll give you the short story. We checked in to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital at 9 pm on Wednesday and started a Cytotec treatment overnight to get the process started. When that showed significant process, the decision was made to go with Pitosin as opposed to additional Cytotec as planned starting 6:30 Thursday morning. We then had a fun day of sitting around with zero progress. Our lovely midwife, Jearlyn came in to check our progress in the afternoon and decided that since Pitosin wasn’t doing the trick, we would go back to Cytotec. Although this again showed, progress we were told by our nurse that we should not plan on much happening overnight Thursday and even talked about the possibility of a sleep aid for Mama Brehm. Not more than a half hour later, Jearlyn came back, performed an exam, and determined that not only was Ashli dilated enough to get to the bag of waters but also that it made sense to do so immediately. We trusted her judgement and by 10:00 Thursday night, Ashli was in full blown labor. We went through 3 doses of Fentanyl at approximately 1:00, 2:30, and 4:00 this morning. Ashli quickly experienced (and I witnessed) the enormity and pain of labor. Somewhere during that process, we started discussing an epidural, and after the last dose had worn off, we went through that process. Now, I’ve heard plenty of stories about how bad epidurals can be for both Mom and Dad, but after this process, I would encourage their use. There were a few scary needles, but because I was helping with the process, I got to miss the gory details. Shortly after we finished this process, Ashli was in her “happy place” and life was good. We got a couple more naps in and outside of Snowball (one of the last times you’ll hear that name) doing somersaults and avoiding the reach of the monitor and the external contraction monitor always losing it’s proper configuration, things were great and we were both able to catch a few minutes of sleep. Another visit from Jearlyn in the morning revealed that Ashli had continued to efface and was dilated to 4 cm, which she followed up with “we could have a baby by lunch”. We had often heard 1 cm per hour, and were assuming 1-3 hours of pushing, so we were skeptical of this deadline. Watching the monitor, we could tell that the contractions were intensifying and lengthening (as again, Ashli wasn’t feeling anything), but were still just settling in for an afternoon or evening birth. Jearlyn came back at 10:20-ish to do another exam and we went from routine exam to pushing in the matter of a few seconds. Apparently Ashli had gone from 4 to 9.5 and the babies head was within a fingers length of daylight, so push we did. Apparently Ashli is a natural at this child birth thing as things Snowball crowned quickly and then came into this world. A few moments later, we found the penis and immediately started to rule our 2 boy names down to 1 (although this admitted took a while). Despite a few minor issues, everything checked out and after a quick stop at the nursery, He got to spend some time with Mom and Dad, all 4 grandparents, and Auntie Kim.
So…all of that being said. Let’s get down to the meat of it. Barrett Thomas Brehm was born today, February 6 at 10:56 AM. He is currently a welterweight at 4 pounds and 9 ounces filling his 18 inch frame. Without further adieu, here are some pics.
Not sure if Barrett is showing off an impressive wingspan or just excited to be in the world:
A couple of pictures of Barrett all snuggled up:
Back to the nursery to get measurements including a good kick from future Husker place kicker Barrett and final length measurement: 18 inches:
Finally, one of the whole family:
