He's Here!

Yeah, I'm a little behind, but Brett Gilbert was born a few weeks ago :) He was 7 lb 14 oz and 18 inches (although we're pretty sure that number is off. He was a little longer). We got to the hospital at 8am, I was started at 9am, and he was born by 2pm. Our doctor was happy with the quick progression because it didn't interfere with his dinner plans :) 

We have had quite the adventure this time around. We'll just say this pregnancy has not been pleasant. It's been a blessing to be at home right now, because I was absolutely worthless for about at least a month before Brett was born. I could hardly get out of bed because I was just in so much pain. The doctor just kept saying it was normal pregnancy pains, but I think he just wasn't understanding how much pain I was in. About 5 weeks before my due date, I went into labor. I kept having contractions, but I wasn't dilating past a 1, so they sent me home, with instructions that if the contractions got harder and closer together to come back. I continued to have contractions, just not harder ones. Then, a a couple weeks later, I started having harder contractions that were about 2 1/2 minutes apart. So we headed back to the hospital. I had dilated to a 2, but after a few hours of hard contractions, I hadn't progressed any more. I was 37 weeks at this point, so technically I was full term, but the doctor didn't want to induce me in case the baby's lungs weren't developed, and also the higher likelihood of needing a c-section. In hindsight, I probably would have taken the chance, since the baby was probably ready to come at that point, and I would have avoided a lot of headaches. I was given instructions to come back if the contractions got harder (they couldn't really get closer together at this point). I went back one night, I think around 38 weeks, for low fetal movement, and started into labor again while I was there. I don't remember how far dilated I was (there's just too many different times to remember), but I didn't progress enough and they sent me home. Then a few days before my due date, I started into labor yet again. We headed back up to the hospital. I was dilated to a 3, but again, after hours of hard contractions, I hadn't progressed enough. I assumed at this point, with it being so close to my due date, that they would just keep me there and induce me the rest of the way. But no such luck. I was sent back home. They basically told me the only way to know if I should come in again would be if my water broke. At every appointment, the doctor was just amazed that I was still pregnant. I guess he didn't believe me that women in my family rarely go into labor on their own. At my last appointment, which was my due date, we asked when he would finally induce me. He said something about not letting me go over 42 weeks, and I just broke down. I couldn't imagine going through so much more pain etc for 2 more weeks. I guess he finally realized how bad it was, because he said he could induce me the following Monday. I was hoping to be induced the next day (Friday), and I think he would have, but he couldn't since there was already another woman there being induced. At least I knew I would only be pregnant for a few more days. So there's that adventure.

At the hospital, when I asked for the epidural, I was at a 5. The anesthesiologist took quite a while to get there, so by the time I got my epidural, I was at a 9, which should have been too far along for an epidural, but we didn't know I was that far until after I'd gotten the epidural. Long story short, the anesthesiologist said I was probably going to have "a really bad headache" later. That was a bit of an understatement. I started getting a headache a few hours later. It wasn't too bad, more of an annoyance, but it kept getting worse. The nurses said I was probably getting a spinal headache. I was told the best thing I could do was lay down, take some pain killers, and drink caffeine. I really didn't want to drink caffeine and take pain killers since I figured it would affect Brett (which they did), but I got desperate. I took the heavy pain killers and drank a coke. I'd never had a coke before, and I have to say, it was disgusting. Charlie kept laughing at me trying to choke it down. Another anesthesiologist came in to talk to me. He said that there was a pretty simple procedure to correct the problem, but there was some risk, and he wasn't positive I had a spinal headache because I wasn't showing the classic symptoms of a spinal headache. Apparently, a spinal headache usually takes a few days to show up, and the headache should go away completely when you lay down. So he told me to wait a few days and see if it got worse. It definitely got worse. The following day, I was at least able to get up to feed Brett. By Wednesday, I couldn't even do that much. My head hurt so bad, it made me so sick, I couldn't eat anything. Brett lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time because of it. By Thursday, I was constantly in tears from the pain. I really can't express how bad it was. Charlie finally said he was taking me to the hospital. And I'm glad he did. It just kept getting worse and worse. Unfortunately, when we got to the ER, it was full. I had to sit out in the waiting room until something opened up. I guess the nurses thought my attempts at drinking caffeine weren't enough (I don't normally drink caffeine at all, so it was hard for me to drink it), so they gave me a Mountain Dew to drink. That was a bad idea. I found out my body rejects Mountain Dew. Luckily, I had told Charlie to bring a waste basket close to me since I was pretty sure that was going to happen. I wanted to laugh at the nurses and say "I told you so," but I was in too much pain to talk. Since I didn't have a bed to lay in, I had to just sit in a chair. The thing with spinal headaches is that if you're not laying flat, they get horribly worse. So the headache just kept getting worse with every minute. Charlie then had the idea to push 2 chairs together to make a small bed to lay on. It didn't take the pain away completely, but it helped a lot. I'm not sure how much time passed but they eventually came to tell me they would do the surgery to fix the problem. They wheeled me back to the operating room and gave me a bed to lay on! The anesthesiologist came in and said he was pretty convinced I had a spinal headache now. The way he was talking, it sounded like he wasn't going to do the surgery. I was going to rip his face off (since that's how this headache felt). Luckily, I just misunderstood him. They took me back and had the surgery done within 15 minutes. Here's a basic description. When the original doctor was giving me the epidural, he missed with the needle and took out some of my spinal fluid. So every time I got up, there would be a void of spinal fluid in my head, which would cause the spinal headache. To correct it, they took some blood from my arm and put it back in my spine where it was taken out in the first place. It's pretty much instant pain relief. The doctor told me to rest for a day, but after that I should be fine. I erred on the side of caution and stayed in bed a little longer than he said to. Sometimes, the spinal headache can come back, and I definitely didn't want that to happen, so I wanted to be sure I was completely healed. It was so painful, I really am debating whether an epidural is worth the risk of a spinal headache. 

But other than that, I healed great :) 

Sam has been adjusting great. He loves his little brother. We have to keep reminding him to stay out of Brett's bubble and not touch him when he's sleeping. My mom started saying, "What do we do when Brett is sleeping?" And Sam will reply, "We do nuffing!" Luckily, we had lots of visitors during the last part of the pregnancy/first part of post-pregnancy, so Sam had lots of cousins to play with and wasn't constantly asking if I would play with him.

Here's a comparison of Sam and Brett. Can you tell they're related? Sam is on the left, Brett's on the right.

Brett has been a great baby. He's pretty chill and doesn't cry too much, although I think that's changing. They say you can't spoil an infant, but I don't believe them.