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

Ready

Man am I ready to have this baby!  At 36 weeks now they wouldn't try to stop anything if I went into labor and on Wednesday I will be 37 weeks and that makes me full term.  I had Avery when I was 37 weeks 2 days.  Which for this baby will be Friday the 14th that happens to be Louis' Grandpa Brandley's birthday.  So it would be awesome if she came then!  I'm pretty sure after Friday I'm going to get super impatient.  (Not like I am already right?)
I'm very scared that I'm just going to be pregnant forever.  That 37 weeks is going to pass, then 38 weeks, then 39 weeks, then 40 and there will still be no baby.  I am ready to get this over with.  Does that sound horrible?  I don't mean it to.  What I mean when I say that is I am ready to bring the baby home and get adjusted to life with two kids.  I'm sure it is going to be a tough first month or two and I'm ready to conquer it!
At my appointment Friday I was dilated to a 1+ and 70% effaced.  My next appointment is this Friday and I'm hoping for a big jump from that 1+!  My fear right now is my water breaking!  It never did with Avery.  Seriously, I have absolutely no recollection of it breaking at any point during my labor or delivery.  That's why I'm terrified, I have no idea what to expect!  The signs of impending labor I'm having are, an increase of braxton hicks contractions (about a dozen or more a day), mild crampiness, and I haven't gained any weight in the last 2 weeks.  I would be ecstatic if I was woken up at night with a real contraction, and then another one 7 or so minutes later!  That's what happened with Avery, and it was great!
I'm hoping this is my LAST pregnancy update!  Wouldn't that be nice??  To finish I have two pictures, one is from last week and I've put it on facebook so everyone has probably already seen it.  The other one though I took today and it's of what I really look like most days.  In my belly pictures I always make sure I'm dressed cute and my hair and make-up are done, you know, I want to look presentable!  This one I took in my super comfy yoga pants and my old baggy shirt because I'm most days I'm just in my pajamas and I figured I should take a real picture of myself before this pregnancy is over!

Me looking all cute and hugely pregnant

Me looking real and hugely pregnant!

Yeah I'm still wearing my pearls.  They make me feel pretty!  Even when I'm in my pajamas and have a hard time getting up and down, I still like to feel pretty :)

With all this mostly negative get out of my body things being said, I also want to say this:  I am so grateful for my body and the amazing things it can do.  I am so blessed to have Louis in my life and be able to create these perfect children with him.  I thank my Heavenly Father each and every day for Avery and this little baby.  Pregnancy is not always fun, but I would go through it a hundred more times for these little ones.  Sometimes I even wonder how I am ever going to stop having kids with all the love and happiness I feel.  I am truly blessed.

21 Months

I realized I haven't done a post for Avery in a long time.  The last one was when she was 18 months!  That was way back in May.  So it's probably time for another one.  Things have been fun, she's still so cute and continues to learn new things just about every day.  Things are also not so fun sometimes!  Since we were called into nursery she's been pretty clingy.  She's finally started getting better over the past couple of weeks.  She throws little mini tantrums as well so that's fun.  When she gets upset she'll hit herself in the face crying and saying ow.  Does she really think I'm going to sympathize and give her what she wants because she's hitting herself?  I don't really know how to get her to stop doing this.  So far I just ignore it and she stops pretty quickly.  Her tantrums never last long though.  Over all she's a perfectly happy little girl.
An exciting new thing she's learning is her colors!  She knows blue, green, purple, yellow, and red.  I'm including yellow even though she calls it banana.  It still counts.  She still loves to dance whenever there is music, and sometimes when there isn't!  She likes to sing too.  She loves songs with actions.  She dances and sings along to the Blue's Clues songs.  Her other favorites are Popcorn Popping and Pat-A-Cake.  She loves to stack things and get them to balance, she is definitely her father's child.  When we were out shopping I had a large jar of salsa in the front of the cart with her and she was holding two things of spices we were getting.  She spent the shopping trip stacking the spices one of top of the other on the top of the jar of salsa!  She loves putting on jewelry, she calls them pretty's.  Her favorites are bracelets and beaded necklaces.  Often times she has 2 or 3 necklaces on and bracelets all the way up to her elbows.  Over the past week or so she's really started picking up on words.  It makes me happy!  I don't really know what to expect from her speech wise at this point so it's something that worries me just because I don't know where she should be!  She still loves Blue's Clues and Winnie the Pooh.  She calls Pooh Bear Pa-Pooh,  it used to be just Pooh I don't know why she added the Pa to the beginning, but it's cute.
Now it is time for a photo dump of pictures from the past couple of months.  She gives the cheesiest smiles when she see's the camera!

Cutie pie with a silly face!

After playing in the sprinklers!

Brushing her teeth

Taking a ride on Dad's shoulders

Laying on my tummy

4th of July

Silly face

She doesn't like the vacuum so she hides from it like this

Putting a baby in her tummy

Relaxing (a lot) and having a snack

Wearing some of her pretty necklaces

She's saying cheese

Avery and Dad

Avery and Mom

She still loves shoes

She loves brushing her teeth

Brigham City Temple

Saturday afternoon we went to the Brigham City temple open house.  It was beautiful!  Go if you can.  We got there around 2 in the afternoon, Avery is usually asleep for her nap at this time so I was a little nervous about how she would do.  She ended up being just fine, she didn't like sitting for the movie at the beginning, but a nice sister missionary offered to blow bubbles for her.
My favorite things from the open house were:  When we pulled up in the bus to the temple and Avery said "wow!"  It was sweet.  The way the little booties looked on Avery's feet and how she kept looking curiously at them.
I didn't realize it until my mother-in-law pointed it out, but there were peaches/peach blossoms all around the temple.  (This was after we had left)  I remembered seeing a picture of a women putting peaches in a basket and thinking, "that's weird"  now I get it!  There are also peach blossoms on the carpets and on the windows in the dressing rooms and on the lights.  I like the little Brigham City touch that adds!
It was nice to be able to bring Avery along with us and walk through the temple.  I'm grateful for all the temples we have around us, we are very blessed here!  I'm very grateful that I have a forever family!

Isn't this last picture so cute!!

3 years

Saturday was our 3 year anniversary!  We had a great time celebrating!  Louis' parents took Avery for a loooong weekend.  I dropped her off Wednesday night right before her bedtime and we picked her up this afternoon.  So that's 3 whole days without Avery.  It was a long time and we missed her a lot, but it was also quite nice to have some time that was just Louis and me.  So let's start with Thursday.  Louis had to work until 11 in the morning so when he got home I made brunch for us:  scones, scrambled eggs, and some grapes with juice and water.

Louis had to work that night as well so we just stayed home and played games and watched a movie.  On Friday we went to breakfast at Village Inn, even though we didn't get the best service, the food was delicious.  Then we went to the D.I. to find a temple dress that would fit me so I don't have to rent one when I go to the temple.  I have a skirt and it doesn't exactly zip up over my tummy.  Let me tell you it's a lot cheaper to find one at the D.I. for $4 than to buy a new one for $40.  We found a dress and we also found a cute little man tie and vest!  Even though we don't have  a boy we got it for if we do, because it was adorable!

We already had the little white onesie

Then we went to get a few groceries!  After we had gotten everything we needed we headed back home and packed a picnic for lunch then headed to Providence to go to the Willows Miniature Golf Course.  Louis and I had never been miniature golfing together!  It seems silly because it's such a generic date that everyone has done.  It was a lot of fun!  The course was great!  There was only one other group there which was nice.  It's 18 holes and very shady through the whole thing.  The only weird thing is that they give you a huge clipboard to hold your score card, so we had to hold that huge thing through the game.  I was winning for most of the course, but then Louis ended up beating me.  I am proud to say though that I got a hole in one and Louis didn't!  The winner of the game gets a voucher for a free game too, so we'll be going back some time!

Louis and I heading out for the day

Getting ready to play

Louis in action

The confusing huge clipboard

After the game we headed over to a park for our picnic which was nice!  Then we headed over to Arctic Circle and we shared a Huckleberry shake, it was delicious!  Go and get one before they stop making them. Since Louis had worked that night we headed home so Louis could take a nap and I got ready for our plans for the night.  We were staying in for dinner and dancing!  So I did my hair and got dressed and prepared dinner.  I made Louis' favorite, Lasagna.  I also made rolls and we had some vegetables.  I also found this adorable little bottle of sparkling cider.  It was a really nice night, and I think that this day was my favorite of the whole weekend.  Now here's an awkward picture of us from before we started dinner, I have a weird double chin almost going on.

Our table

Cute little bottle!

Saturday we went to do sealings at the temple.  It was super hot in there, but the workers are always so nice and kept saying, "are you doing okay??  Just tell us when you need to stop!"  We saw about 7 or 8 weddings while we were there.  After the temple we went to look at a couple houses, we've kind of been looking into buying a house.  When we were done with the houses we did a little bit of window shopping until it was time for our movie.  We saw Men in Black 3, we both liked it!  Then we went home to relax before it was time for dinner.  We decided to go to the Beehive Grill.  We had never been there and have heard good things about it.  They brew their own root beer and we had heard it was really great.  In reality, it was only okay.  We really liked the food and the environment though.  It was a really relaxed, fun  atmosphere.  I had the Asiago & Garlic Ravioli and Louis had the Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich.  After dinner we came home and played some card games then went to sleep.

It has been a very wonderful 3 years!  We have continued to grow closer together and our love has grown deeper.  We are very happy and love our life together.  We look forward to this next year and all that it will bring, especially our new baby girl!  We had a great long weekend together and think we'll do another at home anniversary celebration next year, but Louis will plan instead.
P.S.  We've finally decided on a name for the baby!  Louis was even the one to come up with it!  Which is surprising since he suggested one name and I suggested at least a dozen.  We don't think we're going to announce it until the baby comes, so until then I'll leave you in suspense :)