Brady's Big Day and More Pictures!

After a night where we got more than 2 hours of sleep, we finally have the energy to post some new pictures of Brady from his first few days in the hospital. And since this is our first big post after getting home, we thought we should give a quick run down of how he entered the world one week ago.

It was Wednesday morning at 3:00am when Suzi woke me up. She said "I think my water just broke." Since we had a false alarm a few weeks before, I did not immediately poop my pants. We waited about 15 minutes to call the doctor and soon decided that maybe this was the real deal when her contractions started to get a little stronger. Both of us showered, we checked our bags for any last-minute items, and hopped in the car. Since it was about 4:30, there was no traffic, so we were able to get to the hospital, 5 miles away, pretty quickly. We checked in and Suzi was wheeled up to the labor and delivery wing.

Things didn't get off to a great start because all 10 labor and delivery rooms were full when we arrived, so we were placed in "Triage 2." Awesome. Suzi didn't seem very thrilled to deliver our son in Triage 2, especially since it was half the size and half as nice as the labor and delivery rooms we saw on the tour a few weeks ago (although, it could have been the inspiration for an awesome name: Triage Two Shipe). Anyway, things started to get interesting very fast.

Suzi's contractions were getting stronger and stronger, and after a quick exam, the doctor told us that she was already 5 centimeters and that she could feel the baby's head. Whoa. Suzi was getting seriously uncomfortable at this point and was hoping to get going on the epidural, stat. Unfortunately, they needed to draw blood, do some tests, and get a bag of IV fluids into her before they could get that going, at least an hour or so. This seemed less than ideal to Suzi, as she remarked, "This pain is INSANE." Not being able to give her the epidural myself, I was hoping for some miracle solution.

Things got a little scary when the Brady's heartbeat started to drop. Suzi was able to get it back up by switching positions, but after a few cycles of a low heartrate, her doctor had enough. She said that Brady wasn't too keen on labor and that it was best for him to come out now. Suzi was not opposed to this idea. So, they wheeled her out of the room to the OR and told me to wait in Triage 2 until someone came to get me. After the longest 20 minutes, a nurse came back and said that I had a son! She said he was kicking and crying, even though the cord was wrapped around his neck and body. Suzi was wheeled right back to Triage 2 about 15 minutes later, as she was starting to wake up.

As Suzi started to recover, with the help of some morphine, they let me go back to the nursery to see Brady for the first time. He was laying on a bed, all swaddled up and wearing a little hat. And he was the most adorable little boy I had ever seen. I watched them give him a bath and we were able to go back to see Suzi a little after that. We were fortunate enough to get a private postpartum room (likely due to the fact that Suzi delivered faster than all 10 women in the labor and delivery rooms), and left the comforts of Triage 2 in the late morning.

So that's the story of how Brady came into the world. Hooray for Brady!

Sleepy boy

There's nothing like a nap on mom

Tiny feet

Finally home!

Hmmm... someone just pooped.

Best baby in the world!