Wow! I can't believe I am just now creating a blog... better late than never! Well life is good! Breecia is such an unbelievable little person. She is a such a miracle. Although she was due on August 20, she didn't arrive in this world until August 28 after a rough journey. 31 hours of labor! No typo..... 31 hours!

I actually went into labor on August 26 around 6:30 p.m. after my water broke. We arrived at Inanna Birthing Center(IBC) about 7:15 dilated to a 3. I bounced on the exercise ball, and Brady and I walked around the walking trail across the street at TWU. Cora my sister-in-law, an experienced natural birth mother, arrived at IBC about 7 P.M. to help us out in any way possible. Brady's parents arrived a little after 8 and mine around 10. Lots of support from family, what a God send! I would alternate between resting in the birthing center and walking. Mom and Dad walked with Brady and I after they arrived. By this time, my contractions were between 2-3 minutes apart and were pretty strong. Around midnight, I had dilated to a 5. My progess was great. We were thinking by around 10 a.m. on the 27th we would have a little girl in our arms. What little did we know!! By 6 a.m I had only dilated to a 6. The contractions were really intense by then. Having a natural birth, I had only distractors of using my senses to take my mind off the pain. I was having a lot of back labor and during the contractions pressure and hot packs had to be placed on my back. Around noon I was only dilated to a 7. Progession had slowed down. Contractions were now somewhere between 7-8 minutes apart. Breecia's heartbeat was still good. I got into the birthing tub to try to help ease the contractions but it didn't seem to help at all. I still wasn't dilating any more. I needed to keep moving to try to help. Breecia was far down in the birthing canal but something was going on. We all went outside so I could have complete movement.... walking and doing lunges! Anything to try to help me progress. After about 30 minutes outside we all went back in and to our dismay the lunges did not help. Nothing was working. Around 2:30 on August 27, I was transferred to Denton Presbyterian Hospital. By this time the contractions were very strong. We arrived and got checked into the hospital. After my blood test, I had to receive some fluids because of dehydration. I was beyond the point of exhaustion and I didn't think I would be able to take contraction upon contraction with the state I was in. After thought and discussion, we decided it would probably be best to get an epidural, although it was something we did not want for Breecia's birth. We thought it would be best under the circumstances. After receiving fluids for dehydration, the pitocin drip was started and I received my epidural around 6 p.m. It felt like heaven to not feel that wrenching pain that I had felt for the last 18 hours. At 8 p.m. I had only reached an 8. By 10 p.m. only a 9. At that point I tried pushing and as I had a contraction Breecia's heartrate dropped. The doctor suggested that a C-section was our next move as the umbilical cord seemed to be up around Breecia's head. I was prepped for surgery and Brady dressed in his surgery attire. At 1 a.m, August 28, I was rolled into the operating room. At 1:48 a.m. our little blessing arrived. Our lives have been truly blessed ever since!