Braleigh Lloyal Bentley - DOB 9/5/10

I have a spare moment so I thought I would update you if you didn't already know.... we finally have a baby! Braleigh Lloyal Bentley was born on Sunday September 5, 2010 around 3:30 p.m. She was 20 inches long and 8 lbs 1 oz.   Unfortunatly her birth didn't go as planned, well kind of like everything else during this pregnancy. lol.   So here's a short summary.

Saturday September 4, I started having some contractions around 1p.m.  When I finally started timing them they were 4 minutes appart, which is when my doctor (who was on vacation) said to head to the hospial.   It was about 4:30 when we got to UVRMC.    The nurse checked me and I was 90% effaced and only dialated to a 1 (still.... after 3 weeks! ) They kept me there at the hospital for 3 hours and checked me every hour and nothing had changed, so guess what, they gave me a shot of morphine to ease the pain and SENT ME HOME!  Thats right, so we drove the hour back home and got back home about 10:30.   It was only a few hours later the contractions were back but even more severe.  I was squeezing Brad's hand so tight that he seriously though I was going to break it.   When we got back up at the hospital about 4:30 a.m. The nurse checked me again, and I was dialated to 3 cm! (again I can't believe they sent me home!!!)  They admitted me and called in the Anesthesiologist.  Even though I could hardly understand his accent I could have kissed that man!   After recieving my epidural, most of the labor process for me was spent sleeping.   I did start to get a fever and so by the time I had reached 10 cm, I needed to start pushing, which lasted for 2 hours.  Here's where everything started to get complicated for us. When Braleigh was born, she was struggling breathing well on her own because she had ingested meconium during the birthing process.  They were also worried about her catching an infection due to the fact I had a fever.   I barely got to hold my little  girl before they wisked her off to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU).   We then spent the following 6 days with Braleigh in the NICU until she was well enough to come home with us.  Talk about a crazy, intense and emotional beginning to parenthood.  I know things could have been much worse for our little gal, but spending your first few days as a mom in the NICU is not what you would expect, nor want.   She recovered more quickly than we had originally expected, and now we are finally home with her. 

She is 8 days old today and its crazy to think that we never had her in our lives until now.   I am so thankful that everything turned out well and feel so blessed to have her in our lives.   I can't wait to see how she grows and changes our lives from now on.  

Here are some pictures : 

Braleigh Lloyal Bentley

Our sweet bundle of joy finally decided to come yesterday.   It started on Saturday September 4th at about 1 pm when I started having some contractions.    After they started to progressively get more intense and closer together we decided to head to the hospital at about 3 p.m just to be on the safe side.    We arrived at UVRMC just about 4:30 PM, we were then checked into "labor & delivey" and a nurse checked me and I was still about 90% effaced & dialted to a 1, the same numbers we've had for the past 3 weeks but they kept us at the hospital to montior us and see if anything changed or progressed.   After about 4 hours, nothing had changed, so then we were left with no choice other than to book a hotel here in Provo or go home...after grabbing some dinner, we just decided to head back to Helper. We got back home about 10:30 and I was able to sleep for what seemed like a couple hours, but soon thereafter the morphine they gave me seemed to have worn off and I started having contractions again, but they were much worse than before. It was about 3 a.m when I had enough and we headed back up to Provo to the hospital. Our nurse check me again and said that my contractions apparently had been doing some good because I was almost all the way effaced and almost 3 c.m. dialated!   It seemed like I couldn't get my epidural fast enough, even though it was probably less than 30 minutes waiting to get the go ahead.    After I was given that amazing stuff everything seemed like a blur.  I was able to sleep FINALLY, and probably slept most of the remaining 10 hours or so.   The actual labor/pushing lasted for about 2 hours and just around 3:35 our Braleigh was born!  Our excitement didn't last long because she started having trouble breathing.   I got to hold her for what seemed like only seconds before they wisked her off to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit.   Apparently she has respitory problems due to some type of infection which we aren't sure what it is because her lab results haven't came back.  The doctor has high hopes for her and that she'll recover nicely, but we still have to wait 7-10 days until we can take her home because they have to administer the antibiotics through an IV.  Its still hard to believe that I'm a mom even though I have been one for 24 hours.    I can't want to finally get to hold her in my arms and take her home.