baby deuce: introducing barrett robert

It all begin at 4:30 am Tuesday morning, May 7th, when the hubs and I arrived at the hospital.  Turns out four women had shown up in labor in the previous twenty minutes, so my induction was pretty low on the staff's agenda for that morning!  We finally got a room but had to wait on the pitocin drip because a doctor had to oversee it, and doctors were becoming scarce around there.  At 6:30 am, I was finally on the drip and ready to see some action - I was already two centimeters dilated!  

Unfortunately, I was still two centimeters when they checked me at 11:00 am.  I finally got to three centimeters and figured I might as well get my epidural so I could get a nap in.  At 2:00 pm I was still three centimeters, and at 3:00 pm I called Jessica to tell her I missed her 2:56 pm birth time guess.  She warned me that my labor was about to progress quickly, and boy was she right!  They checked me then and I was six centimeters!  Not even a half hour later my epidural started wearing off and I could feel the baby moving down.  I was overwhelmed with the need to push and told the nurse to get the doctor. When the doctor and physician's assistant arrived, they peaked down and saw the baby's head - I was ready to get to business with pushing!

See, we all knew this was going to be a big baby.  I looked at the P.A. resident (her second day on the job, by the way) and reminded her I didn't want a c-section or an episiotomy, made a scissor motion with my fingers, and shook my head "no" at her.  Just so we were all on the same page.  I was pushing hard, really hard, and the P.A. Paul stood on a stool pushing down on my stomach.  I wasn't even aware of it, but the hubs told me later.   Turned out the baby's left shoulder was getting stuck and Paul unstuck him (causing a few tears to my urethra, but heck I'll take that over a stuck shoulder any day!).  Not twelve minutes after I started pushing, I felt this huge relief and Barrett Robert was born at 4:19 pm!   He has a big goose egg bump on his head and his face received some tough bruising, both of which are contributing to his raging jaundice now.

We were stuck equally between Barrett and Jack for a name, and in the end we just let Britton pick it out.  She picked Barrett and we went with it!  Robert is for my dad.

The hubs followed him over to the warmer while my doctor finished me up.  We were all waiting to see the weight.  He weighed 10 pounds, 10 ounces!  Seriously, I can't even make that up!  And to top it all off, he was 23 inches long.  No wonder the nursery nicknamed him "The Toddler" and my nurses accused him of walking out on his own.  His feet are so long that the ink prints of his footprints cover the wording on the birth certificate.

First meeting

Memaw and PawPaw brought Britton to the hospital so they could all meet Barrett.  We were getting moved to the postpartum room, and we met them up there.  I convinced our nurse to "lose" my chart for 5 minutes so they could see the baby, and she finally agreed!  Britton was really excited to meet her brother, and she was so shy at first.  She didn't know what to think about this baby right in front of her. But she was so proud of being a big sister, and it just melted my heart to see her pride and excitement.

We stayed for two days, two very long days.  By Thursday morning the hubs and I were ornery to get home already.  We missed Britton and our own bed!  Turned out 13 other babies were being discharged on the same day, so we had to wait our turn.  Here is Barrett doing his best Mike Holmes impression, blonde eyebrows and all.

At 10 pounds, 10 ounces, none of his newborn-sized clothes will ever fit!

When we got home we had beautiful flowers from Jessica and her family waiting for us!  Both my work and the hubs' work sent flowers too.  And Cammy sent new clothes for Britton, and she loved being included in the gift-gifting!  In the hospital we gave Britton three new books about ballet and being a big sister, and she wants all three read every night still.

And our neighborhood HOA put up a stork in our front yard!