This is a picture of Ben and my four girls in order, Chelsey, Summer, Alexa, Brooke and I on Thanksgiving. The baby is my new nephew, but I think we look good with him in my arms!

Ben and I, Mom and I and my four beauties, taken 7/8/07!

MySpace URL: http://myspace.com/leochicky

7/14/07

Well...I woke up to a POP and a gush of fluid at 2:45 am. My water broke. Very unexpected. Labor started soon after. All natural, Brody was born at 9:23 am. He was 5 lb 7 oz and 19 inches long. He is so sweet and cute. Breathing on his own, but we have been given some sad news. Brody has an intestinal blockage ): We don't know how bad it is. He was transported to a special NICU at a different hospital so he's not even here with me. I just got back from seeing him though. He is so sweet and helpless and I feel so sorry for him. He will need surgery. We just don't know how serious this is yet. Lots of tears have been shed today. SO SAD right now ): I will keep everyone updated when we know more. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We need it and so does Brody.

These pics were taken before his surgery.

This is Dr. Asay. He performed Brody's surgery and saved his life! This was taken 8/5/07 at a NICU reunion.

BIRTH STORY:

I was having contractions that weren't really progressing me much after my water broke. I was dilated to a 3 and about 40% effaced when I got there after we got to the hospital. Since nothing was really happening after about 2 hours with the contractions, I was given pitocin. That helped me get to a 6 and 60%, but being that I have done it before, I knew the contractions weren't powerful enough to make me go from 7-10, so I told them the pit needed to be turned up a little bit. I asked for it! They broke the forebag that was at the bottom over Brody's head, keeping him from coming down more and WHOA-it took about 15 minutes to be COMPLETE. That last half an hour was HELL. I was in severe pain, and knew I didn't want to have an epidural or pain meds, but they did give me fentanyl. That took the edge off just a little bit. I delivered about 30 minutes after that. I closed my eyes through contractions and thought of my body and the baby working together and how it was natural and the pain was worth it. I was calm and breathing from my nose and exhaling through my mouth with a big, deep breath at the end of each contraction. Pushing was very painful. I had forgotten how much pressure comes with that! But it took me about 5 minutes to push him out and wasn't bad. I did not tear or have to be cut and have no pain there at all! Bleeding has been minimal also. I'm very pleased with how my labor went. I'm proud of myself for sticking with going natural. Good luck ladies!!

Here with my youngest daughter, Brooke at 32 weeks! I look HUGE :

Well, here are the 3D pics of our little Brody!

<---Definitely BOY!