Brianna's Birth

Brianna's 2 weeks old now and I'd better get this written down somewhere before I forget it all.

I'd been having Braxton Hicks for months so when the contractions started I didn't bother worrying about them. We were out driving around and eventually Pedro noticed that every so often I was having a contraction. He freaked! "Why didn't you tell me, Mel?" I figured they were nothing, but he wouldn't relax, very un-Pedro like. He shoved a pen and paper at me and told me to start writing down the times. They were anywhere from 7 to 15 minutes apart and didn't hurt at all, so I kept telling Petey that they were just the fake ones. We got home, timed them some more and Pedro begged me to call the doctor. I told him to give me one more hour. Eventually they got down to 4 to 10 minutes apart and started to hurt--but only a little. I called the doc to appease Pedro, fully expecting to be told that nothing was going on. I was surprised when she told me to go in to the hospital. So at 11 pm we called a friend to come stay with our kids, hurried and packed some bags just in case and went out the door.
The contractions started hurting a lot more during the drive to the hospital, but I still had it pictured in my mind that the nurse would tell me to go back home. So when the nurse told us that the contractions were 3 minutes apart and things were progressing we were shocked! And then I had to laugh. Our baby was going to be born on May 30th. My 2 brothers each have a kid born on the 30th of May. What is it with this day?
I got my epidural around 3 am, tried to sleep some, but couldn't really. The doc came in to break my water--I have no idea when. The fluid was stained green/brown so the doc explained that if the baby swallowed some she could have some breathing trouble at first. So we had a heads up. They got everything ready--lots of stuff for suctioning out baby's airways and put the NICU nurses on alert. 2 minutes and 3 pushes later Brianna graced us with her presence. I don't remember if she cried or not, I barely got a glimpse at her before the nurses were hovering over her, working on her. All I remember are her APGAR scores, the first was a 5, the second was a 7. And then they took her away.

A nurse told me I'd have my baby back in about an hour. The nurse was wrong. 4 hours later and I finally felt good enough to walk down to the NICU and see my baby. There were tubes everywhere. Up her nose, down her throat, an IV in her arm, heart monitors, and all sorts of other wires that we had to maneuver around when we wanted to hold her. The nurses explained to us that she had swallowed some fluid and that the quick delivery had heightened her distress. 5 days in the NICU recovering and being watched over and she was ready to come home. Brianna is a doll and even though it's only been 2 weeks, I can't imagine our family without her. We love our baby.