She is here!

This is me on April 12th just before church and the day before we went to the hospital.

I love this picture. She is only seconds old. I have my eyes closed in all the others and look compltely wasted. I was still on morphine and had been in labour for 10 hours

Mama and Brooklynn bonding after I had a little nap.

On April 14th we welcomed our baby girl, Brooklynn Mary Lee into this world and into our hearts. I am so happy she is here, I look at her and most often cry, thinking how blessed I am, how much I love her and yet at the same time this thought goes through my head like, "where have you been all this time, and I have missed sharing my life with you." Yes, I truly have some distant memory of her, like we knew each other before this life and the wait has been too long to be reunited once again.
I surprisingly fell into the less than 4% of women who give birth on their due date, and even smaller percentage of women who have their doctor deliver too!

I was induced on the 13th around 7:45pm, and gave birth to her at 10:43am on April 14th. I had measured smaller than before at my appointment on April 8th and the fill-in doctor was worried that I might have a loss of amniotic fluid. The following Monday we had a few tests run at the clinic and an ultrasound. My amniotic fluid was fine but they were hoping to score her on certain movements and practice breathing but because she was sleeping we weren't able to monitor those things, thus we scored low on the test. They decided to run the test again at Rockyview hospital and we ended up with the same score as we did in the morning. The Doctor felt that unless we wanted to keep driving up to that clinic each day till we scored better, an induction might as well happen because I was pretty much at my due date and our baby would be more then ready to come out at this point.
My nerves went crazy the moment they offered an induction. Jason was all for it and trying to get me excited but I really didn't know if I was ready, what to expect and being induced went against all my previous "birth plans". I thought I had it all figured out before hand. I wanted to stay at home as long as possible, take a bath, do my exercises and then make my way to the hospital and have a nice natural birth. Ha ha I know this idea makes me laugh too! Things rarely go as you plan right? Well they didn't go at all the way I planned but none the less I still think they went rather well.
At about 11pm on the 13th I finally started to have contractions. I was giving the full dosage of oxytocin before anything really happened, and I was slow to dilate. In the ultrasound we had in the morning we discovered that our baby was posterior and I was pretty apprehensive when contractions had started because I most likely going to endure some back labour. I mentioned that to my nurse, who was also a midwife and so amazing, and she discussed with my pain medication and an epidural. Epidurals were something I feared greatly and wanted to avoid at all cost but in the end it was the only thing that gave me the opportunity to relax, dilate and get enough rest to push baby out in the morning. I had been labouring all night, with no sleep and no food and was simply exhausted in the early AM. They gave me the epidural at about 6:30 and I fell asleep for about 2 hours, when woke I up I had Jason by my side coaching my through contractions that I still felt and the intense pressure too. He was so amazing. My mom told my dad that he was as good as my father was for her. I couldn't have asked for better support. I just kept my eyes closed through all contractions and listened to his voice. He kept me aware of what was going on and to relax as much as possible while encouraging me too. I feel I should devote a whole post to him! Not that I didn't expect him to be great, I was just blown away how strong he was with me.
So after being awake for a bit they checked me and realized I had finally fully dilated and was ready to push. I probably could have pushed her out quicker then I did but I was throwing up a lot during and in between contractions. I pushed for a bout 40 mins and out came our little one. Jason and my mom were both present when she arrived. I was so exhausted afterwards that I was barely awake when they laid her on top of me. Either way I was so over filled with joy, and still am. I can't believe she’s here sometimes. Pregnancy feels like it was forever ago and a glimpse of my past. Crazy- I know I definitely didn't expect to feel that way while I was pregnant!
We've had so much support since her arrival and are so grateful for everything. I sort of feel like I fell off the face of the earth for a while but we're slowly getting in the swing of things and juggling cyclical sleeping and feeding. It's tough at times but it is so incredibly worth it.