Introducing Briella Lulloff

Our little Briella was born on Friday July 29th 2011 at Timpanogos Hospital in Orem. She’s 6 lbs. 9 oz. and 18 inches long with curly dark hair.

The Birth Story (skip if you just want to see pictures!)

Friday morning I went to the hospital for my second amino. We were trying not to be hopeful since last week I only scored a 29 and we needed a 50 for them to let me deliver the baby. The doctor was great and the whole experience was a lot better than the week before. After he took out the needle, he told us that light affects the results so he had to put the fluid into dark tubes—something the doctor last week didn’t do and may have skewed the results. An hour later, the nurse came to tell us I scored a 73! I have never even heard of a jump that big in the lung score, but hey, we’ll take it. The doctor couldn’t do the c-section until later that night, so we went home and called my parents who jumped in the car and drove down to help us with Braxton.

We went back to the hospital at 3 pm where they started prepping me for surgery. It took 3 nurses and 4 painful pokes later to get my IV in. I swear getting the IV was worse than both aminos put together. When the OR was ready, I walked down and got up on the table. The anesthesiologist gave me the spinal injection. This was the only time I shed tears and they were tears of fear for what was coming, not tears of pain. The actual injection was not that bad, again, the IV was worse. Once I started going numb and they got me down on the table, I was surprised at how calm I was. It is the weirdest feeling ever to feel your body go numb that fast. Literally seconds after the shot and I couldn’t even lift my own legs up on the table. The anesthesiologist was amazing and so nice, my doctors were joking and laughing, and my nurse was extremely attentive.

The total time in the OR was less than 1 hour! I couldn’t believe how fast everything went and how different the experience was compared with my prior c-section. I am a little bummed that they cut a different line because I now have two scars across my lower stomach. But, on the upside, I am feeling much better physically at this point than I did last time. I was actually going for short walks at the hospital and am doing some things myself that I still wasn’t doing 3 weeks after having Braxton. Emotionally, I feel more like myself as well, as long as I keep up with the pain meds.

Briella had a short overnight stay in the special care nursery the first night. She was grunting a little and the doctors were concerned that she was having trouble breathing. Then a test came back indicating she may have a slight infection, so they kept her overnight. She ended up being fine and was returned to us by noon on Saturday.

Briella has been great at nursing and hopefully we will be able to continue nursing this time, also unlike my experience with Braxton. I just have to say that nursing is hard work and super painful. I hope that the pain and soreness eases soon! Briella is borderline jaundice and every day we expect the doctor give us the dreaded light bed, but so far we have narrowly avoided it by supplementing a little formula after nursing.

Our first night home was not too bad and we got a few hours of sleep broken up throughout the night. The worst part of the night was when Braxton woke up and wouldn’t go back to sleep. He is having a hard time adjusting to the changes and decided a few weeks ago that he didn’t like his room or his bed. This problem only intensified with our absence during the hospital stay. Hopefully, now that we are home we can help him get back into a good sleep pattern.

Okay, enough story. Here are the pictures!

Before we left for the hospital

On the table and under the knife

First time in my arms

A family of four

Giving kisses

Curly dark hair like her momma

Sleeping with Grandpa

Being adored by Grandmas