The Best Day of My Life

It has been 15 months and 26 days since my amazing baby boy was brought into this world via... me :) I can't describe what it feels like to know that I gave birth. I brought a child into this world. I carried a little developing baby boy inside me. It is simply... amazing. wonderful. beautiful.

I want to record everything that happened in those 24 hours before too much time passes and I can't recall anything.

Let's start at the beginning :)

For months I had kept track of when I had my cycle. I knew exactly the day I would get it and how long it would last. So the week I didn't start was a red flag. (But a good red flag... more like a yellow sunshine-y flag) I was supposed to start on a Thursday and Travis was leaving on Monday (or Tuesday I forget). Friday, Saturday and Monday I took a pregnancy test each day and they all came back negative. Which is the worse to see when you want it so bad. The next Thursday when I was exactly 1 week late, I went on base to Ft Bragg to take a blood test. The results didn't take long, I only had to wait a couple of hours. I was more patient than I expected I would be, but I also heard of some women having to wait until the next day (nooo way I could wait that long).
They called me back in the afternoon and said "we have the results to your pregnancy test and it is positive". Now, as I'm typing this I still am at a loss for words for how I felt. I didn't say anything but "it IS?!!" I had already seen so many negative tests over the past months that I was prepared for the worst. OH what awesome news!!!!!!!!! Who do I call?! When will I talk to Travis?! What now!! So I called my only friend in Savannah, Ambre and told her because I knew I could tell her and hang up right away without needing to talk for 20 minutes. I had to tell somebody!!
I called my mom right afterwards and told her my sisters were going to be aunt's :) meanwhile as I'm talking to my mom, Jami, Travis's mom text messaged me telling me Travis is online. WHAT?!! ALREADY?!! how amazing is that! I find out and within 1 hour I get to tell Travis! In his old unit, I never knew when we were going to talk or how long we would have. While all this was rushing around in my head I texted Jami back saying "DONT TELL HIM!!" and she didn't even know the news yet haha.
I saved our whole conversation but a shorter version of it is:
me: I need you to call me right away
him: I can't babe, whats up?
me: I have to see the Dr and get prenatal vitamins
him: huh? whats wrong? what did they say?
me: YOU'RE GONNA BE A DADDY!!!!
him:
him:
him: :) :) :D :D :) :) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was so awesome to be able to tell him so quickly. Everything was changed. We knew we wanted a family and now we were going to have one. But wait! what if I have a miscarriage! then I started thinking about when he/she gets older. what if he/she gets hurt! what if he/she drives too fast! what if what if what if.....!!! And then I realized... my life will never again be worry free. And now I see why all those mamas think the way they do. I am already the typical mom and I haven't even had this baby yet.
The next day I woke up and thought, "I'm pregnant. Now what?" maybe I thought I would have balloons and a parade everyday but in reality its a lot of waiting. for plus or minus 40 weeks to be exact.
Well I drove to the base to get my prenatals and I was soo happy. I handed my ID to the gate guard & he looked at me for a second and I thought "is he gonna give me my ID back? is this guy mentally unstable? he is just looking at me holding my ID" then he said "that smile... you're smile is so beautiful it just made me stop and... look atcha" :) I didn't even realize that I was smiling and that made my day even better.

Fast Forward a couple months:
Travis came home for a couple weeks in November for his R & R. I was 18 weeks which was still too early on in my pregnancy for them to give me an ultrasound. I really wanted to find out the gender while Travis was here with me so while we were in Florida visiting my family, we drove over to Miami to a 4D ultrasound place to find out the sex of our baby! I had a big feeling it was going to be a girl and I already had a name picked out. Alycia Kristine. (A-lee-see-ya) But as you all know by now, its a boy!!! After we finished up there we ate lunch at Dan Marino's restaurant and that's where we got our special Marino's cup from ;)
It was so hard saying goodbye to him. I held it all in until I got to the car. I sat down and didn't put the car in reverse for a good 10 minutes because I was bawling my eyes out. It was so hard. He was only gone for 3 months and he was going back for at least another 2.

Fast Forward again: Daddy came home Feb 8th, 2008. Just in time to see me all big and round and enjoy the last of the 3rd trimester with me.
Within those last 2 months we made at least 2 trips to the ER thinking maybe, possibly, hopefully I was ready but got sent back.
I was due March 21st, and that came and went.

On March 26th at about 10 at night, I opened the refrigerator and felt like a cup of water was spilled on my pants. I went in and told Travis about it and he sort of grumbled, "noo its not your water babe" I continued to argue with him and thought, okay maybe he's right I'll just go to sleep and if anything, I'll wake up and need to go to the hospital. As I was leaning against the bed pulling the blanket down, another rush of water came. "no babe, my water broke, it happened again". He was so mad telling me "even if we get sent back home, they don't care, I'll still have to wake up early and do PT" I just said "ok fine I'll go to the hospital by myself but it's not a false alarm" and of course being the kind gentleman that he was being, he insisted that he couldn't let me go alone and he was going with me. So we got in the car with none of our packed bags and drove off into the night.
We got to the hospital and signed in at 1040 and didn't wait. We went right back and as soon as she checked to see if my water was broke, it again was rushing out and she said 'yea her water's definitely broke' and I saw Travis's face break out in a smile :) I felt like saying "told ya so" but of course, I keep all sarcastic comments to myself. Travis went home to get our bags while I went to the room which was well equipped with a TV and nice comfy bed.
I went with the midwives because I wanted a more natural approach to my labor. I wanted to go all natural, I was very persistent about that during my pregnancy but trusted her opinion when she decided to put me on pitocin. I watched enough Birth Day & A Baby Story to know what that meant and why she decided on it.
After Travis and I were both in the room, we realized we still hadn't thought of a name. Brycen was the one name that stayed on the list while the others were crossed off and others were added. I said "So are we going with Brycen??" and we agreed!
I was fine for a long time then all of a sudden the contractions came and they were.... horrible. They went off the charts and when I would notice one was going away, one would be right behind it, keeping me on my toes. It was.... horrible.
I am not the kind of person to scream when I'm in trouble or in pain, so I held it all in. Travis was insisting that I was doing amazing but he didn't know that I was breaking down inside. It hurt so bad. so bad. I still blame the pitocin. Around 530 or 6 in the morning when the nurse came back in, she checked how dialated I was and I was positive I was going to be about 8 cm. I could deal with 8. only 2 to go. "you're at about 5" she said. WHAT?! only 5? I thought. "I think I'm gonna need the epidural" again in my calmest voice.
So 30 minutes later the anesthetist comes in and says "I thought for SURE you weren't gonna need me tonight, I was surprised when they called for me" not now Mr. I do not care what you think just give me that huge needle.
Travis had to leave the room and they instructed me to be very still, which was VERY hard since I was right in the middle of back to back contractions. My nurse, who was very nice yet very talkative was joking around with the anesthetist and saying "you see how they treat me?!" in a joking way. I was NOT in the mood to hear her talk, let alone talk to me, so I kept my mouth shut and held in all of this stupid pain that wouldn't be there if it weren't for that stupid pitocin.
I don't remember how fast the medicine kicked in but I DO remember that I felt amazing. After all that pain it was so nice to finally be able to relax. I watched tv, drank sprite, and even slept a little. I couldn't feel my legs and that felt pretty good too.
At some point during the night I was shivering but I wasn't cold. I remembered seeing that on tv and feeling like those girls were going through a rough time. And now I was going through it! my teeth were chattering, I could barely talk! weird what labor does to you.


At about 11 the midwife checked me and I was almost ready!! 1130 she came back to tell me she had to do a couple things but when she got back, "lets get ready to have that baby!" oh the best words. And I'm glad I got the epidural, that would've been at least another 6 hours of pain pain pain.
I don't remember when I started pushing, but I remember not caring who was in the room. I didn't want a mirror to see what was going on and about half way through I threw up. Not my most ladylike of moments but a side effect of labor.
I loved the epidural for another reason because in between pushes we would watch tv and talk about all kinds of things you never thought you would be talking about in the middle of delivering a baby. I started feeling the contractions when his head was visible, but that goodness I couldn't feel my v-j!

At 1:27 pm our baby boy Brycen Lamar Morris came into this world weighing in at 9 lbs 13 oz.

He wasn't crying right away so the midwife cut his umbilical cord very fast and got him to the nurses. I knew he would be alright & I cried when I saw him.
I got 3rd degree tears and had to be stitched up very well. They had trouble getting the placenta out and I'm glad I don't get sick when I see blood. Because there was a lot. After I was all stitched up and they took my baby away for his shots and hospital stuff they do, the nurse told me I needed to use the bathroom. I suppose its one of the things they make you do after you give birth, but I did NOT want to and I did NOT like that woman telling me to get up.
I went to the bathroom hobbling because I was in so much pain. That epidural wore off and the after birth pain started. They had to help me get back from the bathroom because I was about to pass out from not eating anything and just delivering a 10 lb baby.
When I laid down, had a blanket over top of me I started getting color back and I got chicken broth.
A nurse came in and asked me how I felt and I said "in pain" and she just said "well besides that how are you" what do you MEAN besides that?! all I wanted was my epidural back. Please just give it back to meeeee.
I got wheeled off to the mother baby unit and felt every tiny bump! Travis pushed Brycen in his little hospital crib he had. We had the whole room to ourselves and it felt cozy.
We had to stay there 3 days because Brycen & I had a fever and after that he had a slight case of jaundice. One night to help with it he had to lay in his diaper with this eye cover over his eyes in a crib with lights. it was like a newborn tanning bed. Travis and I were so heart broken he had to lay there all alone. So I would take extra time when I had to nurse him.
He was fine after that night and I remember thinking, it looks so beautiful outside, I wish we could go out there.
Travis was so amazing while we were there. He did everything for me, went home and made me sandwiches, brought me snacks to eat. He slept on a pull-out chair for a few days and didn't complain one bit. Anything I wanted or needed, he was right there. I felt really close with him after that and was so happy he was there with us. I don't know what I would've done by myself.
We got released on a Sunday and Travis got 2 weeks off :)

It has been an amazing ride. I love these boys with all of my heart & then some.
I can't wait until Brycen is old enough to know the story about how he entered this world.
I can't wait until he's old enough to comprehend just how much I love him. But he won't know until he has his own children. Even then, I don't think he'll know :)