Natalya Bracken
Born: December 3, 2010 at 8:03 am
Weighed: 7 lbs 8 oz
Height: 20"
Thursday was a busy day. I went to school like normal, then I had a freshman basketball game to coach in Hurricane (which we won! 3-0 now :)). Then Colten and I went to my faculty Christmas party at six and then back to the varsity basketball and finally home at 9. Days like that one makes a really long day for a 39 week and 6 day pregnant lady.
The next day was my due date and I really wasn't having many signs of going into labor soon. I was thinking it was going to take another week for this baby to come out. But... around 10, my water broke, however we didn't really know what to do because it wasn't a huge gush of water, just a really small warm gush. Because I didn't want to drive all the way to the hospital for a false alarm, I called the hospital and told them that my water may have broken. She said I could come in to be evaluated or put on a pad and watch it for the next little while to see if the "water" continues to come out. I waited for over an hour and there was nothing, so I decided to go to bed. I couldn't sleep though because I was having some irregular minor contractions. It wasn't until a little before 1 oclock am that I realized these dumb contractions were strong enough that they were keeping me awake so I woke up Colten and told him that I thought we should go to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital around 1:30 am to find it looking like this...
...all decorated for Christmas.
We got checked in and began the test to see if my water had broken and sure enough it had. Yeah, I wasn't wrong and they are not going to send me home! I couldn't believe it... we were going to have this baby today, on my actual due date. When does that ever happen? And who is ever really prepared to have their first baby anyways? At this point my contractions were getting really painful and I was so excited to hear the nurse say lets get you in a room and set up so we can get your epidural put in. So, I got to the room and was all ready for the anesthesiologist to come when they paged an emergency c-section for another patient. There went the anesthesiologist and there went my epidural! So now I have to wait patiently for him to get back all while the contractions are getting really bad. Finally, he returns and I get my epidural, which once I had it, the only thing I could think of was, "How on earth do women survive this without one, and why would anyone choose to NOT have an epidural?" I was in Heaven after this so as you can see, I'm a BIG fan of the epidural.
This is me before the epidural... Throwing up occasionally. :(
This is me after the epidural. So much happier...
This is Colten, just excited this is really happening!
When we arrived at the hospital, I was dilated to a 5 and just about every hour after that I increased 1 cm and finally around 7 am ish I was at a 10 and ready to deliver. I did a couple practice pushes, and a few real pushes, then the Dr. came in and I did 2 pushes and he did the rest and out she came! I am so grateful everything went so well.
This is Natalya just a couple hours old.
Our little family.
We had lots of visitors. Natalya and Grandpa Hunt
Natalya and Aunt Jessica
Natalya and cousin Braden.
Natalya and cousin Eryka.
The nurses brought her back in the evening all dolled up with a cute little pink bow.
Natalya and Daddy. Both so happy to be here!
Scary looking Mom and Natalya getting ready to leave the hospital.
Wow check out all that hair! Was the heartburn really worth it... Yes!!
Getting ready to go home in her new ride.
We finally made it home and now she is sleeping. Ahhhhh!
