How Brooke arrived

With today being Brooke's due date, it seems appropriate to do a post talking about her arrival!

Jen woke about 7:30 am on May 21st and discovered that her water had started to break. So, after conveniently dropping Paige off at daycare, we headed in to her O.B. office at 9am. It took only a few minutes for them to confirm that her water was breaking and was 6cm dilated, at which point they whisked us off to the hospital!

Because she was having her second child and was relatively far progressed already, Jen's doctor recommended that she have an epidural right away if she wanted one--and she did! So, after getting a half-bag of fluids, the epidural was installed...and then we waited. It took a while for the contractions to build, but she made steady progress--6 cm when admitted to 7 cm to 9 cm, and finally to fully dilated at about 4:30 pm.

In the meantime, we were waiting for Jen's parents to arrive from Pittsburgh. They were to pick up Paige at daycare and then head up to the hospital for a pre-delivery visit. As it happened, they got a bit lost on the way, and the result was that they arrived at the hospital at almost exactly the same time that Jen started pushing. Fortunately, it didn't take very long. After only about 15 minutes of pushing, at 5:03 pm, Brooke was here! She weighed a very healthy 8 pounds, 8 ounces and was 18 3/4 inches long with a full head of hair that explains all the heartburn Jen had during pregnancy.

The delivery went about as smoothly as they come, and both Jen and Brooke are doing very well. Today was Brooke's first doctor appointment since her release from the hospital on Saturday, and she got a stamp of approval. She hasn't gained weight since her release, but she hasn't lost any either. The doctor is putting her on some vitamins, but she wasn't concerned at all about her jaundice--a major problem that we had to work through with Paige. We'll watch it and her weight, but at this point there are no major controls! Jen is a tad anemic too, which caused her to faint the first night, but hopefully an iron supplement will take care of that!

All in all, we're thrilled with how things have gone. So far, Brooke has been a very good--and a very cute--baby. And Big Sister Paige has been super excited, and super helpful. Having the grandparents (two sets!) in town has been extremely helpful, as Paige is getting a ton of attention while her parents are resting and getting to know our new little one!