Welcome Brody Benjamin Davis!
Born Sunday, June 29 at 9:44 p.m.
7 lbs. 14 oz.
20 inches
We are SO grateful that our sweet boy is here! He couldn't wait until his scheduled day, July 3rd, and even decided to crash his Aunt Sara's birthday! We kind of think Ben had a hand in him coming on Sara's birthday, two weeks early, and the second I heard Brody cry, I knew Ben was there and that we definitely needed to give this sweet boy his uncle's name.
It's just amazing how perfectly everything worked out. We were definitely watched over!
I feel like there are so many little details to try and include in Brody's "birth story", but it could get really lengthy. There were so many little tender mercies and things that fell into place so amazingly, I don't want to forget them. So, feel free to skim or skip to the bottom where I will post some more pictures of our cute boy. :)
Brody's original c-section date was July 7th, but as we got closer and closer, I just felt like things were changing and that maybe the due date was off. After talking to the doctor about it, we decided to move the c-section up to July 3rd. We also didn't want to risk going into labor, especially with Marty being 5 hours away in California. I quickly changed a few plans to have Marty and my parents come on July 2nd to be ready for our baby to come, and I did my best to take it easy.
The week before Brody was born, my sister - Aspen - and her kids had been in town for a cousin visit. It was GREAT fun for the kids (and I enjoyed the company as well). My mom had been visiting her family in Arizona and was going to be coming here to meet up with Aspen on Friday, June 27th, to go back home together. I had been secretly hoping that maybe my mom would just stay and not go home between then and the 2nd, but didn't really want to ask her because she'd been gone from home for a few weeks already for different family things.
Luckily, I have two sisters who decided to meddle and they talked to my mom about how I was doing. They all agreed I needed the help, so my mom surprised me by deciding to stay instead of going home before the baby. YAY! It was a HUGE weight off my shoulders.
Saturday was pretty uneventful, we just played, did a little cleaning, a little grocery shopping and hung out. Sunday morning, my mom helped get us all ready for 9:00 a.m. church and we went - and even made it on time! The whole time we were there, I just felt a little anxious and antsy and was also starting to have some lower back pain. I figured it was just nerves about the baby coming later that week combined with sitting in church for three hours. I was having some contractions as well, but assumed they were braxton hicks, so didn't really say anything to anyone.
We got home from church, ate lunch and I laid down and took a nap. I woke up from the nap with a lot more lower back pain, and it just wouldn't let up. I started feeling anxious again, like this wasn't just regular aches and pains and texted Marty to let him know. I called my sister Emily to see what she thought and also to ask if she was available to come take me in to the hospital just to be monitored while my mom stayed with the kids. Having had 4 previous c-sections, going into really strong labor is dangerous, so we have to be very careful. It was decided that Marty should probably just start driving home in case, and Emily would take me in to the hospital. We figured we'd know pretty quick if I was really contracting or not and if I wasn't, Marty could turn around and go back to California, but we felt better about that than having him wait to see what the monitoring showed.
So I took a bath, to see if it calmed down the pains, and packed a hospital bag while I waited for Emily to get to my house. But the pain wasn't letting up. We decided to call Aunt Sara before I left for the hospital, to sing her happy birthday, and tell her she might have to share her birthday (she was at my sister Aspen's house for her birthday party. The whole party they were getting updates from Emily about how things were going...HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARA!)
Marty hit the road about 5:00 p.m., and Emily and I got to the hospital around 6:00 p.m. and I got hooked up to the monitors.
I always worry that I am being over paranoid and would get sent home, but to our surprise I was contracting consistently every 4-5 minutes for the first hour, and every 3-4 minutes after that.
This was the real deal!
The doctor agreed it was time, and somehow - miraculously - Marty wasn't running into any traffic and it was looking like he would make it to St. George by 9 p.m., which is a major record! The doctor decided to schedule us to be ready for the c-section at 9:30, and we just waited for Marty to get there.
At this point, my bishop's wife texted me to let me know they were upstairs if I needed anything (they had a baby a few days earlier). I told her I would actually like a blessing when Marty got in, and I'd let them know when he was there.
Marty walked in almost exactly at 9:00. I texted the bishop to come downstairs to help with the blessing and received a beautiful, comforting blessing.
We got our sweet surgery outfits on -
- the nurse came in, we walked back to the OR, got the spinal and everything prepped, and Brody was here at 9:44.
This c-section was BY FAR the easiest one. I had mentioned to the anesthesiologist that I always get really nauseous and my blood pressure drops during c-sections, so he had doubled my fluid in my IV, which apparently did the trick, because I felt fine the whole time. It was SO great to not feel so horrible.
Brody didn't cry much at first, sounded like he'd "swallowed a lake" (as the nurses said). But we did hear him start making some noise and trying to cry after a minute. They didn't do the traditional laying him on the scale for a picture thing, because he was having trouble clearing out the fluid, so we don't have that. He had to get put on a CPAP machine for a little bit to get him cleared out, but quickly picked up his stats on his own and we were holding him by about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m.
Looks like dark hair to us...we shall see!
I was up and walking around the next morning and the recovery is going great! We are so in love with this sweet baby boy of ours. His sisters just can't get enough of him either!
And now, some more pictures!
This was the first morning in the hospital.
The girls came to see Brody as early as they could Monday morning. Molly wasn't too thrilled and was insisting that Marty hold her for most of the time.
These three were OVER THE MOON in love with Brody. Addison started crying when they had to leave, because she "Missed Brody so much already!"
Then we convinced the ragamuffin Molly to join in another picture.
Just some cute baby faces
Caught the end of a gas smile...cute boy!
Brody's bilirubin was a little high, so they put him under lights over night on Tuesday.
And then...we got to go home Wednesday afternoon!
When we got home, Molly showed interest in him. So we let her hold him for a few minutes. Unfortunately, she'd been a little sick and Marty took her into instacare later that day...and she has strep. Awesome! Luckily, the doctors said newborns are pretty safe against strep, and she hadn't been around him much, so he should be good.
The other girls were also thrilled he was home.
Who needs TV? Brody is the best entertainment around.
Emily came over to visit as well...she didn't get much one on one time with him though.
And I just thought he was so cute laying on my bed...I couldn't resist taking this picture.
And there we have it...the extra long introduction to our newest, sweet baby!
