Bryce Mitchell Docter

Sorry for the delay with this post, but as you can imagine, things have been a little busy! But we are pleased to announce the birth our second son, Bryce Mitchell. He was born on October 26, 2011 at 7:17am. He weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces, and was 20 inches long. He is absolutely perfect. Here is the story....

We were scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 1am for our induction. I actually started laboring on my own the hour or so before we got there. I could tell the contractions were getting stronger and closer together, and while we were waiting to check in at triage, they were about 4 minutes apart and painful. By the time we got checked in, to the labor suite, and hooked up to everything, the contractions were in full force. This was around 2:30. They just gave me the lowest dose of pitocin to induce labor since I already started on my own, and that made the contractions even stronger. They were anywhere from 1-4 minutes apart. I dealt with the pain for a few hours, then they gave me some pain medicine to see if that would work before needing an epidural. It didn't work. It was also horribly painful in my back, and they said the baby was slightly posterior--meaning he was head down, but facing out instead of in, which can cause bad back labor. They kept changing my position to coax him to turn. The doctor broke my water around 4:30, and after that, I knew I had to get the epidural. Of course that made things so much better! However, the monitors started to show the baby's heart rate would occasionally drop so they were keeping their eye on that. Around 6am, the heart rate kept dropping, so they put an oxygen mask on me and moved me in different positions. They also put an internal monitor in me that actually attached to the baby's head to be able to watch things more closely. It went back up and all seemed okay, so I decided to try and get a little rest. Around 6:30 I was shutting my eyes, and by 6:45, the nurses were back in because the heart rate dropped again. They checked me and said I was about 7-8 cm dilated. Then the doctor came in 15 minutes later, and she said I was 9 cm. What?! They were all a little nervous about the heart rate, and I was worried they would have to do a c-section, but then a few minutes later, she checked me again and I was a complete 10 cm! Not sure how that happened so fast! The doctor told me to push once, then quickly stopped me--they could see he would come fast! I pushed for an hour with Grant, so we thought we had some time. They got prepped and ready. Doug barely had enough time to even tell our parents/family how close things were before I started pushing again. About 4 pushes later, out he came! It all happened so fast! I went from shutting my eyes to rest at 6:30 to having a baby at 7:17. We were glad he came quickly, though, since we were worried about his heart rate. But he came out perfect and healthy!

Bryce was immediately placed on my chest and stayed there for most of the time while in the delivery room. I wanted it that way since I didn't get that experience with Grant (since he was a preemie and had to be looked after by the NICU first). It was so amazing! It was weird seeing a little face that looked kind of like his brother but has his own features too. I fed him in that first hour and he had no trouble latching on--something else we weren't able to accomplish with Grant. Both of our families got up to the hospital as quickly as they could to see him. Grant came in the room wearing his big brother shirt and said, "Hi baby!"

The next few days in the hospital went very smoothly. He ate well, pooped a lot, and slept pretty good...just like Daddy! Doug and I talked about how peaceful and calm the whole experience was--I guess you really are more relaxed the 2nd time around. We left the hospital a little over 48 hours later.

Bringing Bryce home and starting life as a family of four has been pretty easy so far. Grant seems to love his brother, but really isn't all that interested in him most of the time. He will look at him, kiss him, say hi, then get back to his toys. Luckily he is young enough to not really seem affected too much by the change. Bryce has been a wonderful baby. He eats great and has actually been sleeping well at night between feedings. He even went over 4 1/2 hours the other night, then went back to sleep for another long strectch after eating! We are very lucky so far, and we are enjoying every minute of it. Doug went back to work this week, and while I was a little nervous to be here all day with both boys, it has actually been fine. Grant is being so good, and we are getting things down to a nice little routine. We took Bryce to the doctor on Wednesday for his 1 week checkup, and he was already back to his birth weight--3 ounces over actually! They said he looked perfect and healthy!

While life with 2 kids will definitely keep me busier, and I may not be able to update this as much as I would like, we will keep it going! Look soon for updates on Halloween and Grant's 18 month stats. (He turned 18 months last Friday, but his dr. appt. isn't until Monday.) Thanks to everyone for their support, kind words and well wishes during this exciting time in our lives. We are very blessed!