Reed

It began when I texted Brandi on Tuesday morning after a meeting a work. It went like this…

Jess – How r u feeling?

Brandi – Okay. Having fairly painful contractions every little while but haven’t timed them. I mean far enough apart that I haven’t bothered to time them.

Jess – Ooooh. Well try to glance at the clock to see about how far apart they are.

Brandi – Ok. I’m timing one now.

Brandi – So…4 min apart. Also, this one kind of hurts

That’s when I came home. I asked my mom to follow behind me. When I got home Grandma Joanne was there and Brandi was getting ready. We got things in order and got in the Pilot. Brandi had been wanting to wait as long as possible to go to the hospital so she actually asked to stop at Sonic for an ice water on the way. Despite my objections we got all the way to Kino. Then a pretty painful contraction hit and Brandi said we should get to the hospital.

In the emergency room there was an angel man who appeared to be a super tan, blue-collar guy in a tank top. He was soooo congratulatory and seemed genuinely happy for us. They got us up to the maternity area and we heard Melissa White say “NO WAY!” as we walked down the hall. She and the other nurse were great.

The whole labor felt less surreal than the others because it was in the middle of the day. Brandi was completely amazing as always. She calmly endured all of the contractions. I fed her beef broth and rainbow sherbet between contractions. Dr. Whip came in after a bit. He was great. He made some bad jokes and hung around. We had decided not to tell anyone we were in labor other than whoever was watching the kids so we didn’t text or call anyone. When Whip checked Brandi she was at an 8 almost 9. It took at least another hour for things to get close. Eventually, Brandi felt her water break. I went to get Whip and the nurses and they started to set up shop. Whip is fairly short so he had the nurses raise the bed up to a ridiculous level. I was on my tip toes and could barely reach Brandi to hug her when it was time to push. We had Pandora playing on the Norah Jones channel to help Brandi relax. I heard Whip say the umbilical cord was round his neck but he sounded very casual about it so I didn’t stress. When Reed came out I looked down to see him and we was a little purply gray but clean. 

They wiped him up quickly and let Brandi hold him. She was all smiles and I was teary. Melissa gave him some oxygen and he started to turn pink right away. They had to use the booger sucker device for a minute or two because they said he gulped some amniotic fluid.

Brandi looked ridiculously pretty afterwards.

After a few minutes Brandi started nursing him and he was a pro right away. I took my customary trip to the separate bathroom to say my thank you prayer to God and then came out and started to text everybody. We got to spend some quality alone time with him. After a bit I went to pick up the kids. The whole time from picking them up to bringing them to see Reed was officially the happiest point in my life. 

They were so excited when I drove up and were so cute skipping in to the hospital. They all got shy and quiet when we got there but it was so great to see them all hold Reed. We got settled in to the recovery room and Brandi displayed her usual superhuman ability to endure pain and never feel sleepy after childbirth. I made a few trips to the house later and grabbed some Panda Express. Then we settled in for the night. Reed is an incredibly cute guy and he has cute shifty eyes. He looks around without moving his head much. He has a fuzzy head and is another perfect baby produced by my Brandi. Thank you Brandi and thank you God.