The North Room: the story of charley

just a family of two...soon to grow!

FINALLY! finally, finally, finally, folks...

I'm glad to announce that Charley Cate Minefee was born on January 4, 2012 at 5:10pm weighing a whopping 8 lbs, 4 oz., and was 20 beautiful inches long. She is such a happy baby and I'm terribly sorry for keeping her story all to ourselves...been kinda busy. {thanks for your understanding :) }

she had a rough time getting here, but she's here and she's perfect!

auntie stephie got to help clean her up!

her poor little swollen face :(

daddy in love <3

oh how we are so blessed!

So now for her arrival story...here goes! (She's sleeping right now so hopefully she will snooze while I write :)

I just knew that I wouldn't make it to January. (Our due date was December 30th) I just knew it. But, alas, January rolled around, and school was going to start up on Tuesday, January 3rd. The 2nd was a teacher inservice day, and I was so reluctant to go, but when ahead and hauled my pregnant booty to school anyway. My induction date was set for the 3rd, and we just knew she would come on her own. Stubborn child...she did NOT.

We were suppose to go in on the 3rd at 7pm so they could place the cervidil so when all my students and co-workers went back to school, I was busy at home with Stephanie and Wes putting up Christmas decorations and getting everything perfect for Charley. (Joseph decided he had better go to work and not use up a day of vacation until she was here). At about 4 o'clock I got the brilliant idea to get a mani/pedi, and after Jojo and I decided on pizza for dinner. Around 6, while we are getting antsy and nervous, the hospital called and said that they are too full for us at the moment, but will call us later that night when a bed opened up. Talk about booming town! No beds open. No biggie, we will just treat ourselves to some McDonalds M&M McFlurries...

Around 10pm that night we got the call so we nervously got our things gathered. I was double and triple checking to make sure I had everything packed while Joseph was throwing up in the kitchen sink. No lie...he was totally and completely sick. Hmmm....nerves was my first thought.

So off we go to the hospital, and the first night was a rough one. Lets just say my nighttime nurse was not so gentle and Jojo was soooooo sick. Puking, diarrhea, the whole works. We were quite the sight!

The next morning, Wednesday, January 4th, my OBGYN came in to check on the progress of the cervidil. After feeling my belly and telling me she thought for sure that I was going to have an 8 lb baby (and me crying) she proclaimed "looks good" and off we went with the wonderful task of the breaking of the water and the beginning of Pitocin. {8:30am}

Contractions came, and got strong. Then stronger. Then super strong. My! Someone had the brilliant idea of putting me on a birthing ball. Geeee....no thanks, it made them even more intense and worse. My goal was to go as long as I could with no epidural (but by no means EVER ruling out an epi). I soon got myself a wonderful epidural. {10:30am}

I snoozed all afternoon! It was glorious! Joseph and I both got to rest and slumber while our families waited around for the big show. {11:30am-4:30pm}

Eventually I was asked to start pushing. Wow, guess I had slept through all those intense contractions. How nice :) I won't go into any gory details, but will just say that pushing when you don't have any idea how hard you are pushing is hard work. Joseph was my rock. He was great at coaching me to push harder, not to give up, and to keep going. With each push though, worried looks came about the room. They thought Charley's cord was wrapped around her little neck because with each contraction and subsequent push, her heart rate would radically decrease.

***sidebar to me watching those corny daytime baby shows. when this happens on tv, i cry. like just feel like i don't know what i would do in that situation. but now, here i was, in that situation. and surprisingly, i felt total comfort and peace. gods hands were covering her little life and i just knew all would be ok***

At one point during my pushing Dr. M asked my nurses to scrub up for a c-section. That was scary. I didn't want a c-section!!! She just didn't see my body opening up for my apparently ginormous baby.

Then the monitors kept going off...her heart rate was still decreasing. They even went so far as to place an internal monitor on her head. (while she was still inside me....eeeeek! I remember reading about this in my baby books but ignoring it because it's very rare that doctors do this. Guess I should have paid more attention!) Finally Dr. M said, "Ok Brandi, I'm not a fan of forceps, but I'll give you 2 pushes. If she's not out in 2 pushes we're going for a c-section."

And that was it. 2 pushes later my sweet little Charley Cate was here! She needed some major assistance from the forceps, and was taken immediately from me to get checked out, but she made it. She was and still is perfect in every way. {5:10pm}

Our family was wonderful. It was so great to have a family friend help delivery Charley, plus our amazing doctor, and the help of my sister, both mommas, and of course, my ever wonderful hubby and partner. I seriously couldn't have asked for a better birthing/hospital experience. In all honesty, it wasn't bad. At all. (Thanks, epidural!) We all swooned over the newest member of the family and it was just so surreal. I mean one minute we were a family of two, then we grew to three. But oh how lovely it is to be a family of three. God is soooooo good, y'all!!! Charley Cate is the sweetest, cutest, and happiest little baby around.

We adore her. And I think she's pretty smitten with us too!