In Z House: Brooke!

Brooke Helena Zaryczny finally arrived on November 17, 2011! Here are some details and pictures from around the time of her birth.

This was taken about a week before Brooke was born back when life was still all about Brandon. He liked it that way!

Here is Brandon giving his baby sister a kiss and a hug. Although he could point to my belly and say "baby!" we really don't think he knew that his whole life was about to be turned upside down by that baby!

Here I am in Brooke's room, which was all ready for her a couple weeks before she arrived! We really thought she would be early, but she had her own plans for when she wanted to show her little face.

Luckily I only had to wait 2 days past my "due" date. About 1:30am on November 17th I went into very early labor with regular contractions 6 minutes apart and leaking fluid. I couldn't sleep so I spent the rest of the night walking around the house and doing gentle bouncing on this trampoline to try to get things moving along more quickly.

At 6:00am, I still wasn't in very hard labor yet (contractions about 5 minutes apart), but we've always heard that things can start moving very quickly with 2nd births, and we were scared about getting stuck in rush hour traffic because the hospital is a 30 minute drive away without traffic, but that can easily be doubled later in the morning. The midwife suggested we go ahead and come in to the Alternative Birthing Center (which is inside Providence Hospital in Southfield). We shouldn't have left then. My Bradley classes taught us not to leave for the hospital until you are well into hard labor, but we let fear of traffic and fear of a quick birth get in the way of that knowledge! We got there around 7:00 am and so did our Doula Erin. As is often the case, labor slowed down when we got to the hospital. We spent several hours walking all over the hospital and climbing flights of stairs trying to get labor to pick back up, but I seemed to be stuck at contractions around 4-5 minutes apart. The nurse tried to get me to take castor oil, but I really didn't want to. At 11:30 the midwife found that I was still only 3 cm. My main bag of waters hadn't broken, so she went ahead and broke it. Things picked up after that.

By 2:00 I was really having to work hard through contractions, so I got in the great tub in my room. I was in there for 2 hours. It's amazing how much better contractions feel when you are in hot water. At 4:00, I felt like I must be so close to 10 cm because the contractions were so awful. The midwife checked me and I was only a 5. We were all devastated. They talked me into getting out of the tub at that point, and the next 30 minutes were kind of a blur because it was so difficult. All of the sudden I had the uncontrollable urge to push (which I never got as strongly with Brandon), and Brooke was almost born in the bathroom. After the nurse made me get on the bed, the midwife came in (she almost didn't make it. She didn't think she'd be the one to deliver my baby because her shift was over at 5:00), and Brooke was born at 4:40pm after about 3 pushes.

This is about an hour after Brooke was born. She was born with really dark hair like Brandon, and she was completely covered with vernix, which was so strange because usually only early babies have that much.

She weighed 8 lb. 8 oz. (Brandon was 8 lb. 5 oz.) and she was 21 inches long. We were surprised again that I had such a big baby in there!

Krzysztof was amazed at the whole process just like he was with Brandon

I couldn't have done it without the support and encouragement of Krzysztof and Erin.

Krzysztof gave Brooke her first bath in our room. Even though she was under the warmer, she pretty much hated having her body washed.

She loved having her hair washed, though!

The next morning Brandon and my mom (called Mimi) came to visit. We kept Brandon in the stroller for most of the time because he cannot control himself around things with buttons and switches, and there is way too much of that in a hospital room. When we showed Brooke to him, he said, "Funny baby!"