Happy Birthday Brianna!

I'm working on our new desktop computer and it does not have all of our photos on here. So I can't put any pictures in this post. So I thought for a change I'd tell you about the day Brianna was born.

My year 2000 baby. Secretly on New Year's Eve I wanted to go into labor & have the first baby of the year. Obviously that didn't happen. My due date was Jan. 15. She is the only baby who came before her due date, everyone else was late. We didn't know what her gender was. We only had one ultrasound with her about the typical 20 week mark. She was a stinker and when the tech went to go look "down there" she literally crossed her legs. We saw her do it and she wouldn't move so we could catch a peek. But rest assure....mom knows best. After all this was my 3rd child. I was sure by now I knew the difference and this child was definately going to be a boy. In fact, we called her baby brother.

I was scheduled for an ultrasound that morning. After my horrible delivery & complications with Mandy we were monitoring the baby's weight so she wouldn't get "too big". My mom (who has been there for all the deliveries) came over to be with me that day. I was getting dressed like any other day & my water broke. I've never had that big huge *gush*, but I could definately tell it had broke.

The doctor's office told me to go to labor & delivery at the hospital. So off we went to wait.....and wait.....and wait....and wait. This is what happened with Angel. We sat around all day waiting for something to happen and nothing ever did. My water did totally & completely brake later on (that was the big gush!), but I never started having contractions. Very typical of me.

My midwife asked if I wanted to take it slow & easy which would easily take me into delivering the next day. Or if I wanted to hurry up & get it over with. I wanted to hurry up. Wham! Bam! Thank you m'am! Besides, the first two kids had birthdays with a 3 in it so it would seem fitting to have this baby born on a day with a 3 in it. They hooked me up to the pitocin and maxed me out right from the get go.

I remember watching Friends (7 p.m.) easily, laughing.....starting to feel things kick in. I remember watching tibits of ER (9 p.m.). things getting quite a bit more intense. In fact I don't remember seeing the end of ER at all. Shortly after 11 p.m. I was ready to push. We seemed to have no problems, except for a small brief second or two when she started to get "stuck". On that last big push I suddenly realized Jim was not at my side anymore. He was next to me on the bed slummped over. (If you don't believe me & Jim denies it, I have it on video!). He was thinking we were heading into dejuvu and passed out. The moment was brief though and baby came out just fine. They place her up on my belly & exclaim...."It's a GIRL!" My head shot up & I said "WHAT?!" (seriously, you gotta see the video it's great!). Jim is starting to wake up at this point, looking around the room with the expression of where am I & what just happened.

And there was our baby girl Malyssa. Yeah, that is what we named her. Later on Jim was honest & told me he didn't really like it. Not so much the name, but how I wanted to spell it. So we came up with Brianna (after my brother Brian) Nicole (after my father's middle name Nicholas). She looked like no other. Much fairer skin & blond hair. I kept telling the nurses that if I had not seen her right away I wouldn't have believed she was my child. But she is certainly a Peterson through & through.