Here he is...Brody Colton Brown

Brody was born emergency c-section at Vanderbilt Medical Center on November 4th at 7:06 pm. He weighed 6 lbs. 8 oz and was 20 inches long

Brody has a lot of hair!


Brock loves his new little brother. He wants to hold him and give him kisses


My parents with the boys


Erik's parents with the boys

I had been having some contractions for a few days, but on Monday they started to become a little more noticeable. We went to see my midwife and it was another routine visit. We ran errands and while we were out, Erik started to feel sick. We finished what we were doing and headed home. Erik had to call out from work that night because he could not keep anything down. Meanwhile, my contractions became closer together and I started to pick up around the house, pay bills and get some things done that I had been putting off. I alerted my doula and my mom that I might be in labor. As I was doing stuff around the house, I noticed that I had to stop what I was doing and breathe through my contractions...alright, I guess this could be it. I packed up Brock's stuff to stay at my parents and made a list of the medicine my bulldog Sophie needs so the neighbor could take care of her in case we had to leave. Around 11:30 pm. I called my midwife and let her know how far apart my contractions were. I labored at home for a while hoping to be further along once I got to the hospital. Around 4:30 am, I had enough of laboring at home. I called my midwife and told her we would be on our way to the hospital, called my doula so she could meet us there and called my mom to come over and stay with Brock until the morning. My contractions were pretty intense and we still had about a 30 minute drive, so I had my friend Tabitha come over and stay with Brock for a few minutes until my mom arrived. Once we got to the hospital, they checked me and I was at 4 cm. I was so excited because I thought, "alright...almost halfway there!" My goal was an unmedicated birth, so Erik and my doula, and another doula who was being trained were helping me through the contractions and I would not have been able to do it without them. The support was amazing! Around 9 am, the midwife checked me and I was at 7 1/2 cm. The nurses started to get everything ready in the room for the baby to come and I was so excited that this birth seemed to be going so differently than it had with Brock. I thought for sure that I would have the baby by 11 am. My midwife checked me again around 3 pm because I wanted to see how I was progressing. My body was getting tired and I wanted to see that I was making some progress with each contraction that I was working through. I was so disappointed to find out that I was still the same, no progress. My midwife was thinking that the baby was posterior and this was why I was not progressing as I should. At this point, I started to think of what the anesthesiologist had told me that if I had to have an emergency c-section that I might have to be put under since I was laboring naturally. I decided to get the epidural a little after 3 pm. After I had gotten the epidural, the midwife decided to break my water to try to speed things along naturally. After some time and no progression still, we tried pitocin to make the contractions stronger and hopefully help get me to 10 cm. After about 2 hours on the pitocin, there was still no progression. About 6 pm, we decided to go ahead with the c-section. The surgery took a lot longer than normal because I had a lot of scar tissue from my previous c-section. The doctor told me that if I had labored longer that I might have had a problem with my uterus rupturing. Brody was posterior like the midwife had thought. I am at peace with the way the birth went, I have a healthy little boy and that was the ultimate goal!