MARY BROOKE'S DELIVERY STORY

Read the blog heading before reading this. You've been warned. I've already written about the whole c-section scare. Once that was passed us, Dr. Reed was ready to induce on Monday, January 11th. But, being the awesome aunt that I am, I opted to wait until Wednesday, January 13th so the baby would be born on Hayden's birthday. I'd hate to miss it by two days when we were so close. Dr. Reed agreed to wait. Maggie and Mac spent the night with my parents the night before and Brett and I used the gift cards that his parents gave us for Christmas and went to dinner at Outback. Afterwards, we came home and tried to relax. I'm not good at doing that the night before having a baby. I laid in bed, awake, all night long! At 3:30 am, I woke Brett up and told him to watch t.v. with me. So, just like with Mac, we laid in bed and watched America's Funniest Videos. Then, we got up, showered, and headed to the hospital at 6:oo am, after stopping at Walmart to get Brett a Mountain Dew, of course. The hospital was packed! Babies and pregos everywhere so we were placed in a triage room for a while. They asked if we minded having a student nurse observing. Of course we didn't. She was a sweet 23 year old named Sarah who was on her first rotation in the OB. Our labor and delivery nurse was Mechelle. She was great. We all sat and chatted for hours. Mom brought Harrison and the kids out for a while but Maggie was not too fond of all of the equipment so they didn't stay long. Like always, Harrison hung out all day. They started the drip around 9 am and the contractions started shortly after. They weren't bad at all at that point. DeJuana has always been in the room with me but her nurse supervisor was not being cooperative. We texted DeJuana each step of the way to let her now where we stood. My dear friend, Stacey Sodergren, accepted the roll of videographer/photographer/leg holder. She arrived around 10am. Dr. Reed came in about 11 or 12 and broke my water. As he said, "I'm three for three with no pain." Shortly after that, Sharon Burns arrived and said she would see to it that we were moved to a real room. 5 minutes later...we were! At 1pm, I was at 4 cm and my contractions were super strong. Whew! I asked Brett to remove everyone from the room. About 1:45, I received my epidural. Ahhh. They changed the rules since last time. Brett had to stay seated. I could hear him munching on his Chick-Fil-A while I was getting a 3 foot needle jammed into my spine! At 3:15, I felt pressure so they checked me again and I was at 10 cm and crowning! The nurse, calmly, asked the student nurse to call Dr.Reed, who was at his office in the university, on his cell and called for the room to be prepared. She laid the head of my bed back so I was perfectly flat and told me not to move, including cough. Up until that point, we had all been cracking jokes so she instructed everyone to not make me laugh. All of that made me a little nervous, because we had no doctor, that my blood pressure alarm starting going off. Then, I realized that her hand was in my "undercarriage" holding the baby in! Seriously! She apologized for us having to remain in that position. It was really hard not to chuckle. She had the nurse call Dr. Reed again. David was in the waiting room and texted DeJuana who was flying from Brookwood. At 3:40 Dr. Reed was in the hallway by the second call and came straight in while getting dressed. Then, DeJuana came busting in right on his heels. Stacey threw her the regular camera while she videoed. It was quite comical. It was all so chaotic that noone noticed that there were more people than allowed in the room. I pushed once and her head was out. I pushed again and there she was! Our new baby girl was born at 3:46 pm with much excitement. Afterwards, I learned why the nurse wouldn't deliver on her own. Mary's cord was laying across her head! Dr. Reed told me to look and he held up the cord which was tied in a complete knot! God was totally in control and taking care of our baby girl.