Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Brooke Lyn Robinson

So as you out there in Blogger world know, little baby Brooke has been with our family for 10 days now! I am SO SORRY it has taken me SO long to get on here and post some pictures and the birth story. I have had a hard time being motivated to put my little girl down, and to have the desire to sit on our HARD wooden office chair for as long as it will take to tell the birth story of this little lady! But I told myself TODAY IS THE DAY! So as Brooke sleeps next to me in her swing cooing and making cute little baby noises and faces I will send her story out to the world!
First for some pictures!!! I did a very mini shoot 4 days after her birth but need to get back out my stuff and go CRAZY!!! Here are some shots from the mini shoot!
Meet Brooke Lyn Robinson, our perfect little princess!!
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Ok now for her forever long birth story and a million pictures to follow!
Monday, July 13th I go into the hospital with contractions that are 3-5 minutes apart and am observed for a few hours and sent home because my contractions are not making me dilate any more than the 1.5cm I was at my last appointment. From Monday on I have consistent contractions but nothing painful and useful.
Thursday, July 16th I was scheduled to be induced which was 4 days after my due date. I was super excited and was told to call down to the hospital at 1pm to make sure I could come in at my scheduled 2pm appointment. Well, I call down there and they tell me that they are full and overflowing and that I needed to call back at 3:30pm to see where they were at at that point. I was super depressed so Kipper cheered me up and made me laugh and we decided to watch a movie to kill time. At 3:30 I get up from the couch to make the call down to the hospital and I feel this gush of something run down my leg. Not a HUGE gush but enough to where I wondered if I somehow just peed my pants. I went to the restroom and realized at that point that my water must be leaking. So I call the hospital and tell them that I was scheduled for and induction but that I think my water just broke. They tell me to come on in!
We get there at around 5pm and stand in the hall about 30 minutes as my contractions start to pick up more regularly. When I go in the nurses do a PH test to check if my water has broken, one says it has and another test says it has not but they decide that I have broken my water and that they would admit me! I was SO EXCITED!!! The external monitor on my belly was showing that I was having big contractions every 2-3 minutes so they decided to give me 4 hours of contracting before checking me to see if I even need to be put on Pitocin since my body was looking like it was doing the work well on it's own. 4 hours go by and I am checked and....... still at a 1.5 which I had been at for a little over a week now. So they decide to start me on Pitocin and the party begins! The nurse that was on that evening was not super aggressive with the Pitocin and they did not want to check me too regularly due to a chance of infection so the process seemed to be long from the start. My contractions were looking super strong and regular but at my next time of being checked I was only at a 2 after HOURS of Pitocin! At this point it is now Friday and I am beginning to come close to the 24 hour mark from when my water broke. No food, no sleep, and now at 24 hours of hospital labor. I decide that I am going to have to have a C Section and mentally prepare for it. Then the nurse staff changes and I get these super cool aggressive nurses that tell me that if I want to try for a vaginal birth than they will do all they can to make that happen. I was SO STOKED!!! My heart rate was good, Brooke's was good, and I had been on antibiotics for hours which would make my chance of infection very small. They decided to continue to monitor both of us very closely and to become aggressive with the Pitocin, and to change my contraction monitor to an internal monitor to get a more accurate reading of how effective my contractions were being. They said that since I had little fat between my skin and the uterus that the external monitor was sensing EVERYTHING more than it really was. The internal monitor showed us that my contractions were regular but very small. So the Pitocin gets upped every 30min and I start seeing a little progress with the contractions but not much, and begin to feel back labor (not fun). Then suddenly the monitor starts showing that my contractions are fading again. I am not really feeling much pain so I decide to take a short nap. Well I wake up from my painless nap and go from 5% pain to 100% in a split second!!!! OUCH!!!!!! I wanted to try to go without an epidural but O MY GOSH!!!!! So I try to breath through them but they feel like there is NO rest between them, there was no point where my muscles relaxed for even a second to recover before the next contraction. I was not a happy camper. At this point it has been coming up on 30 hours of me not having food or sleep and my toleration was slim at that point. I had them come in to check me and I was dilated to a 4! NO WAY could I make it to a 10 with this kind of pain so I asked my mother in law to go tell them I wanted an Epidural. They order it and it's been like 10 min and no word from anybody, I feel like I am going to die any second. So I send my mother in law back out to find out what is going on as I begin to loose it. The nurse comes in and tells me that it is going to be about 30min till the doctor can come in to give me my epidural because he is in on a C-Section right now. SERIOUSLY????? To me a half an hour seemed like a lifetime away and I was 100% convinced I would be dead by then. My husband did as I told him to try to talk me out of getting one but I did not care one bit! I wanted the pain GONE!! So then the nurse comes in and asks me if I want a pain reliever while I wait for the doctor. Instantly I say YES!!!! As soon as that medication hit my veins I was SO HAPPY!!! I was on cloud 9 and wanted to steal more of those drugs to bring home. I was so, so sleepy and I am sure pretty dang funny at that point! I could still feel the pain but really did not care, strange! Interestingly the internal monitor at this point was not showing that I was having any contractions when in reality I was having HORRIBLE ones! So as the Epidural gets given they also decide to give me a new internal monitor since the other was not reading anything. Aaaaaaa.... the Epidural was wonderful and at that point I could not feel much at all. The internal monitor shows me having contractions for a while but as time goes by and every 30min my Pitocin gets turned up the contractions look smaller and smaller. At one point I had gotten the full limit of Pitocin that the hospital gives but I guess a doctor can approve you for a little bit more. My doctor approves me for the highest dose a human can get so every 30 min we work towards that full dose. And as time goes my contractions look to be getting smaller and smaller and smaller on the screen. I am now convinced that I am immune to Pitocin and that again I will be getting a C-Section after all of this mess! When I reach the full dosage they come in to check me. The contraction monitor screen looks like a smooth country road at this point. I expect them to tell me that I am dilated to a 5 or something stupid like that and that they will need to give me a C-Section. She looks up at me and says you are to a 9 and 100% effaced. YEAH!!!!!! I was so happy that I celebrated by throwing up for the first of many times to come. So an hour later they come in and I am at a 10. Then they for some lame reason go away for what they tell me will be 30 minutes and I start getting the urge to push big time. 45 minutes later they come in to check on me and I tell them that I NEED TO PUSH!!! ( ok so I had been to see my sister have both of her babies and she pushed like 3 times to get them out and so did my mom with us kids so I was expecting to see my kid in minutes ) Well after the first set of pushes the nurse tells me it will be about an hour of pushing. I am now at 31 hours of being in labor at the hospital, no food, sleep, and the fuel in my body is on empty! Ok 1 hour I tell myself, I CAN DO THIS!!!! Well come to find out Brooke's head is stuck under my pelvic bone so the nurses are digging their hands in there trying to pull her head down as I push out. Pushing, pushing, pushing, and sweating, sweating, sweating. I had to have Kip put a freezing cold wash cloth on my head in between every push to survive. I threw up during the pushing out of pure exhaustion. At an hour and 45 minutes of pushing I am seriously about to pass out and am starting to worry that I really am going to. My eyes were rolled in the back of my head, I could not even open them, and I was barely conscious. I told them that I could not do it anymore and they offered to use the vacuum on her to get her out, followed by all of the things that can happen by using the vacuum. As much as I wanted her out, my husband was standing right there having just heard all of this stuff and I did not feel that it was my right to make that kind of decision for OUR baby on my own. I decide to keep pushing on my own. My mom says the doctors faces were disappointed when I made that choice. So one more round of pushes and I call for the vacuum before I totally pass out! Before the next round of 4 long pushes the doctor tells me that even though I have the Epidural my hip bones are going to feel like they are going to shatter when I am pushing, she tells me that they really will not shatter but to expect that kind of pain. SHE WAS NOT KIDDING!!!!! Thank goodness I had that Epidural because I think if I had not I really would have passed out from the pain. But as they put her on my chest the deepest love I have ever felt just rushed over me, I felt a pure love that I have never felt before and I looked into my husbands teary eyes and fell more in love with him at that very moment. She was perfect, banged up and bruised but perfect! She was born on Saturday, July 18th at 12:52am her Uncle Rick's Birthday. After that my placenta would not come out! So after 30 min of trying to massage it and pull it out the doctor had to stick her whole hand in there and sweep it out of my body. I at that point had tore in 2 places, up and to the side. The doctor told me that I made the right decision by using the vacuum because if not I would still be pushing and would possibly have to get and emergency C-Section. She also told me that if I had a baby 1oz bigger that they would not fit out of me and that from this point on my other kids should probably be delivered by C-Section for the safety of me and the baby. I am glad that I had hung in there as long as I did and that I got to experience a vaginal delivery because I do not know if I will be able to do it again with my other kids. I wish I was more awake, aware, and alive when I delivered her so that I could have soaked up every moment of it but I was not. I did not see Kip cut the umbilical chord and had to ask him the next day if he even did. I hardly saw her come out because when I looked up to see her coming out my head fell back to the bed I swear a second later. I feel like I missed a lot of the emotion of the moment because I was so far gone. But I am SO, SO, SO grateful for a healthy and strong baby girl that was SO TOUGH through the whole thing and never even showed signs of distress through it all. She was worth every second of the 33 hours of hospital labor and everything I felt and did!
I am doing well now, still a little soar but living on love and happiness right now! Here are some shots from the birth, the hospital and other stuff.
Mommy & Daddy Excited to meet their little girl!

Still Having Fun (early in the process)

Inside Joke with my mommy!!

Getting ready to push, can you tell I am tired?

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT!!!!!

Our Cone Head!

All banged and bruised up, a rough entry for a tough little girl!

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT for Daddy!

Mommy holding her for the first time cleaned up!

First Family Photo!

Daddy giving the first bath!


Family Shots!




Going Home :) FINALLY!!!!



Our whole family together!!!

34 comments:

melissa gargalis said...

Sarah you are amazing!!! I think a lot of people would've given up at a certain point. i can't imagine how exhausted you must've been after it was all over. Glad you're enjoying your little one and that you are both healthy and well. Can't wait to see her in person. Enjoy it all and get as much rest as possible.

Jenn said...

I was waiting to read about her birth! Yours is similar to mine... back labor, sweating and the baby getting stuck! No fun at all, but so worth it! She is beautiful! Congrats you guys!

jeanine said...

Way to stick it out! She is so beautiful.

Jessica said...

awww...now i can go about my day not having to check your blog every 3 seconds :) great story-glad it wasn't me, you are one tough mamma! i'm so glad you had awesome nurses who helped you acheive a vaginal delivery, there is no joy like it. Brooke is beautiful, i can't wait to see her in person...you seriously did such an amazing job during labor, your endurance is incredible! great pictures, p.s. you are way girlier than you think you...wearing dangly earings and necklace in labor! lol wow...that stroy was intense, i feel like i have way more to comment on but i'm still soaking it all in! i'm starting to think your love for horses somehow, by osmosis, made your body so immune to those drugs ;)

Jess Edling said...

33 HOURS!!! Woman, you are my hero. I hope when my time (finally) comes I'm as badass as you were. Way to go!! What a gorgeous baby, gorgeous family. Congrats to all of you. Glad to hear you're all home and doing great!

Meagan said...

You are so cute! Glad you finally have little Brooke home and she is just too beautiful!!

Melissa Nelson said...

Sarah, you are such a trooper! I am sure the experience has made you a stronger person. Brooke is such a gorgeous little girl and it looks like you are taking to motherhood perfectly!

Trent and Kristi said...

WOW!!!! That is one LONG and hard labor! I am so sorry it was such an ordeal - but SO glad she is here and you are both doing okay! No wonder you are sore with all they did to you! CRAZY!! I hope for a very FAST recovery for you! She is adorable - so cute and doesn't hardly look like a newborn! Congrats~!

The Hansons said...

you are such a champ!!! I am SOOOO happy for you guys! it was such a touching story and I am so happy for you guys! i cant wait until I can experience the same thing.

Sundbergs said...

Sorry everything was so rough, but congrats and she is beautiful. You are amazing and I hope that you heal fast.

The Picketts said...

And that is EXACTLY why I have to have c-sections!!! My babies would never fit :( I'm a little jealous that you actually got to experience a natural birth! COngrats on a VERY beautiful baby girl! Seriously, she's ADORABLE! And way to be such a trooper!!! You've already experienced how a mom will do ANYTHING for their babies! Can't wait to see more pics!

The Gray Family said...

what a day, but well worth it in the end! I'm glad I got to hold her last night...she is ADORABLE!!!!

Amanda said...

Even though I have heard the story, hearing it again is exhausting. But you did it! You worked hard for that beautiful baby girl. And she is beautiful! Those pictures are great! Soooo alert at 4 days old. She is adorable. I just love my little niece and miss you girls soooo much!

Emily said...
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Emily said...

Reading that during my break in my class, I had to fight back the tears that were threatening to escape. All your suffering that you went through is just crazy! I love you so much for going through it and she is such a beautiful baby Sarah! She looks like both of you, in one picture though I see a lot of Kip! I am thrilled you both made it through that experience alive! I am AMAZED by you!! Emily

everyday katie said...

Every labor story is so different. I've been waiting to read this. That moment when you finally meet your baby is so amazing and so spiritual. IT doesn't matter how horrible labor was...it's a beautiful moment. Congrats again. She is SO SO SO gorgeous!

The Perry family said...

She is beautiful!!! Sarah, you're one tough mama! Not fun! I'm so glad that you're both alive and okay. Enjoy your baby, can't wait to see more pics!

Wheeler Family said...

You are such a trooper! She's a doll! Congrats!

Todd + Emily said...

Love the pictures. The first one is my favorite!! thanks for letting me come over all the time to hold her! She is such a good baby and you are such a natural at being a Mom she is one lucky little girl to have you and kip as parents!

Lacie said...

She is BEAUTIFUL!! Oh my GOSH, you went through a lot. CONGRATS!!

jeanine said...

Sarah... how do you get your pictures to be so big when you post them?

Heidi said...

Holy Moly! that is one incredible story! You are amazing! So glad she is happy and healthy! I hope your recovery is going well!

The Ward Family said...

Hi Sarah. I've been thinking about you guys and checking your blog to see how everything went. Congrats! What a story and that's great you wrote it all down! Take it easy!

Todd Family said...

I have been checking too to see how it all went! I heard it was intense...but man. She is so big! I can't imagine what my mom went through cuz I was 10 lbs 2 oz! She looks so much like a robinson to me! I am sure you are on cloud 9 and i am glad you wrote it down for memories sake! great job!!

Amber said...

Yeah! yeah! Yeah! She is such a cute little thing. Can't wait to meet her. Congrats. So glad you didn't have to get the c-section. I hated it. But I guess they gotta get out some how. Love ya.

Peace out!

Liz said...

Wow...you're such a trooper. I've had two kids and still don't know what a real contraction feels like! I can't wait to meet your beautiful baby girl!!

CONGRATS!!

Wards said...

Congratulations Sarah! She is so BEAUTIFUL!!!! I can't believe you went through 33 hours of labor! You are a trooper and epidurals are the most amazing thing in the world! I had Avie with out one, not by choice, and it was H-E-L-L!

Anderson Family said...

Wow! You are amazing!!! I think I would have passed out and begged for a C-section just to end it. Brook is beautiful and I am so happy for you and Kip! Congrats Mommy!

Dacia said...

Wow, that's some story! I'm so glad that everything turned out. You're one tough cookie! love ya!

Ryan and Brindi said...

yeah! congratulations! she is soooo beautiful! ouch, ouch, ouch you poor woman! your labor was intense! glad everything turned out perfect. enjoy mommyhood! :)

Sarah said...

I am so happy for you and Kip...and can't believe how tough you are!!! (dave says he's reconsidering having children now after i read this to him. i said who is he to say that?! lol) but i think it was totally worth it!!!! can't wait to see your family!!!

xoxo

amber said...

you have such a beautiful little girl. the good thing about this story is that you'll have it to hold over her head someday, trust me you'll want it. love that your family is now blessed with this little angle. love you!!! auntie amber

the Chandler chronicles said...

Congrats on surving your loooooong laor, Wow! she is absolutely beautiful! I love your B&W pics of Brooke. Love her name too ;)

Heather said...

Sarah, you ROCK!!!! She is just so darn cute and I loved seeing you with her, you are already a great mommy! ;)