Briton's Story

Here is a bit of a birth story:

Briton's birth story would not be complete without a small snapshot of the preceding couple weeks.

• We (Abby, me, Briton in utero) arrived in MI on January 10.
• He couldn't be born before January 31 because I really didn't want him to come "home" to a hotel and at least by then we'd have closed on our house.
• But, he also couldn't be born before February 6 because we wanted decent insurance.
• He really should be born before February 10 though so that my mom would be in town, but when that didn't happen...
• We requested that he wait a few more days until Abby and I were over our colds.

I think that the poor kid got sick of all of this and went on strike. Something like, "Fine, you win. I'll just hang out in here until I'm forced out." That wasn't too bad of a way to go, but the day or two before the designated day, Mike was sick so we almost had to put him off again, but happily, we didn't!

After that the story is not too long or complicated...

On February 18, we went in to the hospital at 7 am to be induced. It was really quite simple. I was in my room by 7:05 and my nurse was waiting for me there getting everything ready. She put me on the monitors and realized that there was already some pre-contraction stuff going on. She says that I was definitely ready to have this baby. By 8 am, the Pitocin had been started and I was progressing. At around 9:20, my water broke on its own and I got an epidural within the next half hour. All along, the nurse was telling us that she predicted this baby to be born before 1 pm. That really surprised me since I was in labor with Abby from 5 am until 6 pm. At around 11 or 11:30 I noticed that I was feeling some mild pain with the contractions. The mildness (stress the word "mild") felt just fine, so I didn't say anything for a while. I learned a lesson there. I got a little "boost" to the epidural at around noon, but that wasn't in time so it never caught up. I think there was very little of the numbing stuff left (there was probably more than I think - wimp!) for the rest of the time. There were several times over the next half hour that I entertained the thought that he might just need to stay in for a while and that everyone else could just figure out a way to get him out. (It really, really hurt, but I survived.) I pushed from 12:07 until he was born at 12:33, and, yes, he is worth it!

Briton is doing very well. He was born at 8 lbs. 6 oz. and when we took him in for a weight check yesterday, he had put on 11 oz. in 7 days to bring him to 8 lbs. 12 oz. He is quite the growing boy and we all (Abby included) think he is great!

All these pictures were taken when B. was 18 days old.