Brooks Lear Christensen

Well, after 33 hours of labor he finally made it here Thursday night at 10:34 pm. He weighed 7 lbs 12 oz and was 20 inches long. He is absolutely perfect and worth every second of it. I will give you the short version of the long labor story: basically I was set to be induced Wednesday at midnight because I wasn't progressing and they wanted to use some stuff to help soften everything. Well I got a call Tuesday night at about 9:00 pm and they told me not to come in because there weren't any open rooms. They told us to call in the morning and they would see when they could get us in. Well, I didn't end up getting a room until 1:00 pm on Wednesday. It was frusterating to say the least. Once we got there they got me set up on an IV (which hurt SO bad) and then they put the gel stuff in and told me they would come and take it out at 2:00 am. It had to sit for 12 hours. It was such a long day. By the time they came to take it out I was having some pretty strong contractions but I hadn't dialted past a one. So, they came in and gave me my epidural and started me on pitocin. I was so scared of the epdiural but it actually wasn't half as bad as getting the IV and it worked great! To make a long story short, I was having consistent contractions all day but I was only dialting like 1 cm every 3 hours. It was SO frusterating! Also, I had to lay on my right side the whole time because anytime I would turn on my back or left side the baby's heart rate would lower. So this caused the epidural to stop working on my left side. When this happened I was dialated to a 6 and it was so painful. The anesthesiologist was in a C-Section too so we had to wait almost an hour for him to re-dose me. By the time he got there I was completely un-numb. It was awful but once he gave me some more medicine, it numbed me right back up and I was fine for about 2 more hours. Then it wore off again on my left side. By THIS time, I was finally at a 9 but the contractions were the worst thing I have ever felt. He came in again and redosed me and again I was fine for awhile. The bad part about getting the epdiural was every time he would give me more, I would throw up. They came in at 8:00 pm to have me start pushing. When I started, I was still really numb. But... I ended up pushing for 2 1/2 hours. It was the most exhausting thing ever especially since I had gotten no sleep the night before and hadn't had anything but ice to eat all that day. I honestly don't know how I even did it. So I pushed and pushed forever and by the time the baby's head started crowning, my epidural had completely wore off again. Pretty much I felt EVERYTHING! It was the most painful thing I have ever or hopefully will ever experience. But like I said earlier, it was so worth it! It was the best thing ever to hear him cry and know that he was perfect and healthy. It's amazing how much you instantly just love them and would do anything for them.
So that's pretty much the story. He did end up having jaundice so we stayed in the hospital as long as we could yesterday so he could be under the bili lights. We'll find out today if he has to keep using the bili blanket they gave us. Hopefully not. It's so weird to be home with a little baby but so far things have gone relatively smoothly. We are so grateful for all of our family and friends and all the support we have gotten the past few days. Brandon and I both feel so blessed! And now... here are some pictures of our little guy. More will come I promise!

Our little family


This was right after he was born. You can't see it in this picture but his poor little head was so big and stretched out from being the birth canal for so long. He totally looked like a little alien at first! :)


Brooks and daddy (Brandon is already the best dad in the world!)




Brooks and Grandma Maria


Meeting Uncle Caiden and Uncle Jason




This is my favorite picture: Brooks and daddy taking a little nap together.


He has the cutest feet in the world- they are so big!