About four weeks later, I took a pregnancy test, thinking I might be pregnant again. The test was positive but it was hard to be excited because we just weren't trusting it fully. I took a few different tests and brands and all came back positive. So I called my doctor and they suggested I come in for a blood test check my levels. I went in and took the test. Found out my HCG levels were so high they thought I was pregnant with twins.
At around 16 weeks I took a special blood test that tested a whole bunch of things and one thing it would tell us is the gender. We found out we were having a boy while we were all in the car together. Madison refused to believe she wasn't getting a sister.
I was hardly sick during Brandon's pregnancy and was able to stay pretty active throughout. He dropped around 36 weeks and I felt it was going to fall out of me every time I bent over. However, I met with my doctor on my due date and we scheduled a day for me to be induced.
I thought it was scheduled for Thursday, June 14th. But, at 7:15am on June 13th I got a call from Labor and Delivery asking if I was still planning on being induced that day!
So I woke Stewart up, got the family fed, Stewart and I were off the hospital in the same 2003 Alero we had taken to the hospital for the other two kids. Memories started flooding my mind of contractions, delivery, and holding a new baby. I was getting really nervous and had no idea what it would be like for me to get induced.
They started Pitocin around 1pm and I honestly didn't feel anything for an hour or so, so they upped it. Hardly anything still. I walked around a lot and was doing dances and squats with Stewart. I was dilating slowly and it was driving me nuts. They broke my water and that didn't make any change. They kept upping it ever so often, but I wasn't feeling anything significant. THEN they upped in around 6:30pm. Holy moly did I start feeling contractions! They were so instant and very sharp. I had to pee so I got up and could hardly make it back to the bed. I kept feeling like I needed to poop and push. The nurse had me get on the bed to check how far I was dilated and I was only at a 7. I was tired and decided to ask for an epidural to see if relaxing would help me. Stewart says he heard so many swear words come out of my mouth and had to keep himself from laughing when I was cussing for the anesthesiologist to get there faster. I was shaking so bad and when the anesthesiologist came he told me I need to breathe deep to try to stop shaking because he couldn't do anything until I stopped. I had Stewart sitting in front of my while I was sitting on the edge of the bed. I was staring him in the eye and concentrating so hard to relax. I was incredibly sweaty and in a terrible mood. The epidural was placed and I was asked to lay on my side. As soon as I laid down I felt Brandon coming. I kept telling the nurse "He's coming! He's coming! I know he's coming!" I knew she didn't believe me and leisurely finished her notes then decided to check me again. As soon as she looked she said, "Oh! There's the head!" My doctor was already at the hospital all suited up and came in right away. Brandon was born less than ten minutes later.
I was terrified during that birth. I kept telling Stewart I thought I was going to die. The pain was unreal since the epidural didn't have time to numb anything. There was one nurse that was holding my right foot that really helped me focus and I am so thankful for her! haha
I was completely exhausted after. They laid Brandon on me and I could hardly hold him. Stewart kept saying I was so in love with the baby I wasn't giving him up so Stewart could hold him. But the truth is, I was so tired I couldn't lift the baby to Stewart.
We had a really hard time deciding on names for him. But we settled on Brandon because it was common and fit with the other two kids' names well. I wanted his middle name to be Stewart the whole time, but Stewart wasn't sure. He decided he wanted Stewart as the middle name after he held him.
Since Brandon was born so fast, he had taken in a lot of amniotic fluid and we had to suction his mouth out at all hours of the day and night so he wouldn't choke.
Stewart's mom was there to help the week prior and my mom came the day after we got out of the hospital.
Brandon is quite the baby. He's been a very quiet boy but is very interested in what other people are doing. He's not afraid to crawl over anything or anyone in order to get what he wants. He's been a thumbsucker since the first minute we saw him. He is a very chill baby and we get comments all the time about how good he is in public. But now that he understands he can get out and play, he hasn't been so happy to just watch! RIP easy sacrament meetings. He is only 9 months and he already has 9 teeth - the first two came through before he was 3 months old. He started crawling when he was 6 months because he wanted to play with our Christmas train and has been trying to walk the last couple months.
We all love this baby so much.
