Mary Olivia Brandley-Birth Story

I want to get this all down while it's still all fresh in my mind!  We will actually start with Thursday night.  At a little before 9:00 I started getting contractions that were roughly 7 minutes apart.  That continued for about 45 minutes and then stopped.  It was a little disappointing, I had gotten my hopes up!  I had an appointment Friday morning and I decided I was going to ask her to strip my membranes if I had progressed any more since last week.  Luckily I had!  The week before I was dilated to a 2.5 and 80% effaced and at my appointment I was at 4cm and 80% effaced.  So she stripped my membranes, it did not hurt at all and wasn't even really uncomfortable.  After my appointment I walked for about an hour and a half and swung on a swing and danced like a crazy women.  That last one was mostly just for fun.  Avery loved it!  Nothing really did anything I don't think.  I was having contractions, but they were not at all regular so I just went on with my day like normal after that.  Louis and I decided to go on a little date since it would most likely be the last weekend without a newborn.  We dropped Avery off with her Uncle Josh and Aunt Megan and we went to see the Avengers (again) then to pick up some Cafe Rio to bring home.  I'm glad we got that last date night with Louis, it was really nice!
At about 11:00 that night my contractions seemed to be getting more intense, but still were very far apart.  We went to sleep close to midnight.  I woke up about 3 times with contractions, but was able to fall back to sleep really quickly and easily.  At 4:00 I decided to get out of bed, I just walked around and checked my e-mail.  My contractions were closer together, but still irregular.  They would come every 7 minutes, then 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 8  minutes, etc.  I didn't really know what to think of that.  During my contractions I did lots of things to relieve the pain.  I squatted and rocked myself back and forth.  I also paced back and forth a lot!  Around 5:15 I got into the shower to see what that would do.  It helped me to relax a lot!  Which is why I think my contractions quickly got to 2 minutes apart after I got out.  I quickly dried my hair and woke Louis up at 5:45 telling him to call his parents (they're staying with Avery while we're in the hospital) and to call Josh to see if he could come stay with Avery.  I kept saying to Louis, "We need to leave!  we need to leave right now!"  Of course I had everything packed, but we were still rushing out of there!  We were pulling out of the house as Josh pulled up.
Louis may have been going about 55 mph on Main St. where the speed limit is 35 mph.  He dropped me off at the front of the hospital and I quickly went in.  Labor and Delivery is on the second floor so I went to the elevator and it quickly opened.  By now I was having constant contractions.  That elevator ride was so long and horrible all by myself!  Once it got to the second floor the doors took forever to open!  At the hospital you have to check in at a window and then they'll buzz you into Labor and Delivery.  I got to the window and I'm sure was acting ridiculous.  I just said to them, "I'm having a baby I don't have my insurance information with me, my husband is coming with it!"  Seriously.  I said "I'm having a baby!"  haha, like they couldn't have guessed that.  All they did was ask my name and then let me in at 6:01.
When I got in the door I said "Help!"  I laugh at myself for that now, but it did move things along quicker.  A nurse named Kersha (she was amazing the whole time and really helped me out) brought me into a room and told me to just change into the gown right by the bed.  I just pulled me pants off and pulled the gown on.  I didn't even take the time to take my shirt off.  I just wanted to get checked.  I wasn't fully dilated yet, but very very close.  I never asked or was told where I was at.  My contractions were coming so close together and I kept saying I need to push, I need to push.  They wouldn't let me.  Kersha really helped me with my breathing which was great.  "hee hee hoo. hee hee hoo." it kept me so calm to have someone breathing with me!  I just focused on the breathing and the pain went away!
The on call doctor wasn't there yet, but they kept saying she's running!  Louis wasn't there yet either.  Little did I know they were trying to get him to answer all the insurance questions and blah blah blah at the window.  Finally they got the memo that I was going to be having this baby any minute (from all of the nurses running in to my room) and let him in without having to answer all the questions and filling out all the papers.  Hello!  We could do that later!
So the doctor was "running" and they were trying to keep me from pushing.  Which if you've had a baby you can understand how hard that is.  One of the nurses said they were going to try to set an IV quickly in between contractions, I was not very nice and bluntly asked, "Why?  I'm having this baby any minute!"  They ended up not setting an IV, I'm glad I spoke up.  It was about here when my water broke.  I've never had my water break so that was cool to experience!  I literally stopped and said "was that my water breaking?"  They told me yes.  The nurses hadn't had time to get the monitor on the baby and at this point they were trying to find her heart beat.  They couldn't find one so it went from, "Don't push, it's not time to push," to "Okay Becca we're just kidding you need to push now!"  Thank you!  I already knew that.  The on call doctor still was not there so with a nurse named Dawn helping me deliver, I started pushing.  Two minutes later at 6:13 our little Mary was born.  That's only 12 minutes after I got there.  (The nurses are still now talking about it over 24 hours later)
They swept Mary away, Louis didn't even get to cut the cord, and started sucking out her lungs and nose.  I hadn't heard her cry or whimper and I was getting scared.  I kept asking Louis if she was okay, even though he was still next to me and didn't know any more than I did.  I asked him to say a prayer for Mary and moments later I heard her whimper then let out a big cry.  It felt like at least 2 minutes, but Louis said this all happened within 30 seconds.  I have horrible perception of time during my deliveries.  Like with Avery I swear I was pushing for 20 minutes, but it was only 5 minutes.
The nurses continued to watch over and clean Mary, she scored a 7 and an 8 on the Apgar test.  The doctor (Dr. Smith) came in at this point and helped deliver the placenta that took about 15 minutes, with Avery it just plopped out moments after she was born.  Dr. Smith also stitched me up, I had a 2 degree tear, not too bad thank goodness.  Still sad to me since I didn't tear with Avery.
When they were finally done with Mary, Louis brought her over to me and I got to hold her for the first time. It was wonderful and the crazy crazy morning was made perfect.
She is so sweet, and happy.  She's been a great nurser which isn't surprising, she loves to suck.  When she came out she had little red blisters on her hands from sucking on them.  She is also very alert so far for a newborn.  She will be awake for half an hour to an hour after eating.  She'll just look around taking in this new world.  We sure love our baby Mary and are so glad she is safe here with us!  Now enjoy a bunch of pictures!
P.S. Since people keep asking us, I guess I will clarify that Mary is her first name and Olivia is her middle name.  And we will be calling her Mary not Olivia.  Or else we would have named her Olivia.

This is the last picture I have of me pregnant, it's 5 days before she was born

Getting cleaned off

First time holding Mary, notice I'm still wearing my shirt?

Louis and me with our new addition

Louis helping with Mary's first bath

Avery meeting her new sister, she was commenting on her "shoes" right here

Kisses for baby sister

Our family

Mary and me

Our Avery is so cute and sweet

Avery tried to steal Mary from Papa today

Already a binkie baby because she likes to suck so much!  I was going to try
and avoid binkies for the first little bit, oh well!

So alert and cutest baby ever!

Welcome to the world sweet Mary Olivia!

If you want to read Avery's birth story click here