Baby Brown is here!

And it's a.....................


















GIRL!!!!!!!!


Ginger Aileen Brown made her way into the world:

Friday, May 29th at 1:08 am
7 lb, 2 oz
41 weeks
perfect!

Ginger decided to take matters into her own hands and not wait around for a scheduled c-section- that's my girl! I started having contractions around 2 am Thursday morning. I was cautiously getting excited about really being labor, since it's what I wanted after all (going for a VBAC) and I was down to the wire with my section scheduled the next day (41 weeks) .The contractions increased throughout the day so we finally went to the OB around 4:30, to confirm that, yes, I was in labor! I was still not dilated and doing fine, so she suggested we walk the mall and eat dinner for a few hours, then proceed to the hospital around 7:00. We did just that and arrived at the hospital to find I was ONE cm dilated woohoo! Not much but more progress than I'd ever made before! Again, it was suggested to keep walking, this time around the hospital. I'm in pain at this point but not awful. Well we walked the halls about 20 minutes and everything became suddenly unbearable. We went back to triage and told the nurse I needed to be admitted and get an epidural. At this point, she checks and I'm 2cm..and in pain! Suddenly Paul sees his wife turn into a crazy, animalistic, screaming person as the contractions start piling on top of each and I am in pain like have never experienced. Seriosuly, it's kind of funny now, but I was SCREAMING and holding on to dear life to the side of the bed, uncontrollable. Finally, about 20 minutes later, a nurse comes gets me, takes me to my room, checks me, and I'm at 7cm in that short of time, contracting every minute. She was a godsend, and got me a little under control with managing the pain and helping me focus. At the same time, she is barking out orders to get everything ready, calling my OB to get here ASAP, setting up a warmer, etc ,etc. Oh, and the best part is she got the anesthisiologist there ASAP and lied to him about how far along I was so he would still give me the epidural! I love nurses :) My OB comes, breaks my water...tons and tons and we wait. Now all of a sudden the contractions are not on top of each other, but still coming, but everything calms down a little. Next, she adds a very small amount of pitocin, but it doesn't change what my body is doing already.

By now it's about 9:00 I think, and we are all just chilling out a little, realizing baby isn't coming quite as fast as we thought. Although it seems like it was only 20 minutes, it was more like three hours that we wait. I can't get dilated past 8, and every contraction I have, baby's heart rate starts to dip, but always comes back up. My OB offers a c-section at this point, but I'm still hopefull for my VBAC so refuse unless she thinks baby or me is in danger. She is very cautious with her VBAC deliveries. She gives me another half hour or so, and then it's not my choice any more. Baby's heartrate is not good and it's on to emergency c-section. Ginger came into the world at 1:08 kicking and screaming, and is perfect, that's the only thing that matters at this point. Come to find out, she was "brow-faced" in the birth canal. Meaning that instead of the top of her head facing the top of the birth canal, it was more like her eyebrow and nose area. If you look at the pictures of her forhead, you can see a bruise where the internal fetal monitoring was done. That monitor is supposed to hit the top of their scalp, so it kind of tells you how she was positioned. I didn't get my VBAC, but my little girl still got to choose her own birthday, I definitely got a taste of what labor was like, and we are here and healthy! Or at least for awhile...

We are back in my room and I get to nurse Ginger for the first time, she takes to it perfectly and everything is great. We are snoozing a little and around 4:00 my nurse notices my blood pressure dipping I guess. She starts to check it every 5-10 minutes and it continues to dip. Apparently I have lost all color at this point, and am spacy. Next thing she is ordering labs to check my blood oxygen (I think) and calling my OB, and waiting for the results. I guess the first results weren't too bad but she is still monitoring my BP like crazy, and by this time Dr. Johnson is here...not a good sign at 5:00 in the morning. All I know is that my BP is dipping down to 60/30 and they are talking about internal bleeding. I'm really scared at this point because I don't really understand just how big of a deal this is, or how concerned I should be. Next thing I know I'm being rushed down the hall yet again to the OR. This time I'm put under general anesthesia, leaving Paul our new baby alone and scared as well.

I awake to that awful coughing of getting the tube pulled out of your throat. I'm just happy to be awake, I was really scared. Dr. Johnson opened me up again where the section was, and found lots of internal bleeding. It was all removed, but they still couldn't find where it came from. She double stitched all the work from the section/tubal just to be safe, and watched for a good 20 minutes to make sure there was no more bleeding - there wasn't. I received two blood transfusions. She said my uterous looked good and that me previous section scar was fine, so in the end we have no idea why I bled. I ask and she says this has NEVER happened to a patient before.

Friday was a big fog for me, but I was feeling much better Saturday afternoon and today is even better. We should be home on Tuesday. Ginger got all bottles on Friday, so we've been struggling getting her to nurse since yesterday, but I'm grateful she seems to have turned the corner and is doing great!

So, we are all here and happy and healthy, and grateful we can say that! Lilly and Owen have visited baby Ginger twice and seem to like her so far. I'm sure Tuesday will be interesting to say the least. They have been having tons of fun with both sets of grandparents but we miss them and I know they miss us too. I can't wait for our new family to all be together on Tuesday!

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I love reading everyone's birth stories so was compelled to post mine as well.

Check back often for photos!

Jennifer :)