the brown family

We are so glad Annelise is now a part of our family! Her due date was July 6th but the Lord had me wait a few more days until her arrival.....perhaps He was developing more patience in me? :-) On Friday night, July 9th I actually had a migraine so I called the nurse at my OB practice to see what they thought about that, mainly because my symptoms are so scary - I get totally numb on one side, get blurry vision, can’t speak coherently though I am trying, and have a dull headache afterwards. The nurse told us to go to the ER b/c i could be having a preliminary type of stroke since I was pregnant. I didn’t really want to go b/c that is how I always feel if I have a migraine but David insisted. Turns out, all was OK but the doctor did say that it could be brought on by hormone changes.....perhaps I was getting ready to go into labor.

On Saturday, I had some Braxton-Hicks contractions but other than that nothing exciting. We spent the day with my parents and rested. David and I watched the movie, Invictus, on Saturday night and toward the end of it I thought maybe I had had a contraction. At 12 AM, I started noticing contractions and that they were about 5 minutes apart. Having been induced with Charlotte, I wasn’t sure if this was what it was supposed to be like?! I went downstairs and timed them for about 30 minutes - every 5 minutes apart. I went back upstairs and told David I was still having contractions - he replied, “well this can go on for hours, why don’t you go back to sleep?” I said, “its difficult to sleep since they are coming every 5 minutes!” This of course got David’s attention! I called the nurse who told us to head on to the hospital and David called are friends Nate and Joni to come over and stay with Charlotte. On the way to the hospital the pain factor definitely picked up! They started coming every 3 minutes by the time we checked in. I had no idea how long you have to be in triage, answering medical questions! The whole time I was thinking - can I please get my epidural?!! The nurse checked me and I was at 3 cm and effaced so we went on to my room.

Wow - talk about painful. My contractions at this point were about every minute or so and horribly painful! I had to stand up because laying down on the bed was driving me crazy. Finally after getting my IV, the anesthiologist came in for my epidural. Long story short, the epidural was more difficult going in than with Charlotte. But, the effect was well worth it! After 20 minutes or so I felt wonderful...and very tired having not gone to sleep at all. My nurse checked me at this point and said I was at 8 cm! I tried to rest some after this but kept feeling more and more pressure. I called my nurse back in and my water broke. She then started prepping the room for delivery. I felt fine at this point but started to feel even more pressure. I told my nurse that and she discovered that Annelise’s head was crowning! She told me to not push because the doctor wasn’t there yet. My doctor finally arrived, I pushed once and out Annelise Lillian Brown came! She had a head full of black hair and started crying immediately. David declared, “Its a girl!” - since I couldn’t see what was going on. We were so excited to meet this precious new life the Lord has given us.