Brock Ryan Webb

For you to fully understand the love our Heavenly Father has for our Brock and what he’s done to get him here safely, I need to back up a few months. I’ve been meaning to journal this event for a while now, but I never did get it completely finished.

When I was 26 weeks pregnant I was driving to visit a friend and her kiddos. I was driving on the freeway and was somewhat nervous because it was pouring outside and I couldn't see very well. I was cruising along when a song I didn’t like came on the radio. I specifically remember looking down to change the station, but then I didn’t; for “whatever” reason I kept both hands on the wheel and stayed focused on the road. Just seconds later, a car swerved from three lanes over into my lane and right in front of me. I knew there was a car in the carpool lane but I had no time to think and no other option; I was able to swerve into the carpool lane and was blessed enough that the person in that lane was able to swerve to avoid me hitting them. Had I hit the driver that swerved into my lane, because she came at such a sharp angle, I would have hit just behind her driver door going 70 MPH.  I know that it could have been a horrific accident, that quite possibly could have killed her, me, and most likely would have made me miscarry. After I got back into my lane and people stopped honking, it took me probably a solid ten seconds to realize what I just avoided and I broke down. I cried hysterically. I cried because I was overwhelmed with the thought “that could have been so bad”. And then it hit me with a ton of bricks… “My Heavenly Father is aware of my baby boy and protected him. My baby boy is meant to come to this earth at this time for reasons Heavenly Father has planned for him.” The love I felt from Heavenly Father for my baby was overwhelming and more real than I had ever experienced before. I was an emotional wreck. On Sunday during Relief Society I could not stop thinking about what Heavenly Father helped me avoid. I pulled out my kindle and wrote a letter to my baby boy:

My sweet baby boy,

I want you to know that your Heavenly Father loves you, knows you, and has a plan for you. You are a special boy and will bring so much good and so much joy into our family and into this world. I promise you that if you stay close to your Heavenly Father and keep his commandments you will have so much joy in your life. This life isn’t easy and you will have hardships and trials but with your family and with your Heavenly Father you can overcome anything. Your dad and I are your biggest fans and will always love you, support you, and be there for you. I promise that we will teach you the gospel and give you the tools you need to live the gospel. We love you more than you know and want nothing but the best for you.

Love,

Mommy

Now I will fast forward to Friday, November 15^th. Ry and I had wanted to get up to St. Charles one more time before baby boy would make his debut. I was 35 weeks pregnant and we knew that we would have to start staying closer to home in the next couple of weeks. This was a weekend we had been looking at for a while since I didn’t work and we didn’t have anything else going on. It turned out to be even more of a perfect weekend to go up since Ry’s mom and grandma would be in Montpelier staying with his uncle and we really wanted to visit him. By the time Ry was done working and able to leave it was dark. We debated back and forth if we should go. The weather hadn’t been too bad, but Ry was worried about black ice in Logan Canyon. However, if we didn’t leave that night we wouldn’t be able to go at all since there was supposed to be a blizzard starting early the next morning and lasting all day long. We had already packed and loaded the car and knew that if we didn’t go up this weekend we might not make it up before baby boy was born. We decided to go. The weather hadn’t been too bad during the day and we the car had recently had its tires replaced. Not long after we left Ry mentioned that he had a feeling that we shouldn’t go. I didn’t have any sort of feeling either way. I told Ry that in no way would I be upset with him if we didn’t go because he felt like we shouldn’t. We kept driving and pulled off the freeway about ten minutes from home to get gas. When Ry got back in the car he told me we weren’t going. We turned around and went home. Little did we know that the reason Heavenly Father prompted Ry to have us stay home was because our little man would be coming.

Now Saturday…Saturday just makes me laugh. You want to know what we did all day? We cleaned. We vacuumed, cleared out the boxes from the living room, moved the extra TV and table out of the nursery, etc. etc. We cleaned all day long. Can you say “nesting”? :)

*I know this is an extremely long post and I apologize, but I want to remember the details :)

Sunday morning at 9am I woke up and realized that something didn’t feel quite right. When I stood I could tell that there was some drainage so I went to the bathroom. The drainage kept coming and went from thin and clear to thicker and pink and then back to thin and clear. I started to panic a little and woke Ry up and told him something was wrong. After about 15 minutes the drainage all but stopped. We talked for a few minutes and tried to figure out what we should do. We had stayed up really late and he looked exhausted so I sent him back to bed and decided to shower. The drainage seemed to have stopped but I decided to call the on-call doctor anyways. I had been in three weeks before to be checked when I had had some similar drainage but on a much smaller degree. I told the doctor about this and told him that last time it was nothing and asked if I needed to be checked regardless or if I could wait and see. He said I was fine to wait and see but to go in if there continued to be a good amount of drainage. I decided to start getting ready for the day since our home teachers would be here shortly. I had another large gush of fluid and started to doubt that we would not be going into the hospital to have me checked. I kept getting ready and we went upstairs to wait for our home teachers. As we sat there waiting I had another large gush and ran downstairs. Ry stayed upstairs and visited with the home teachers (he told them I wasn’t feeling well haha) while I packed us a bag for the hospital. Lucky for me I had made a hospital bag packing list in my phone the night before at about 1am haha. After the home teachers left we were off to the hospital. Not long before I noticed I was starting to feel a little crampy and get pain in my back that would come and go. I didn’t know if these were contractions but I decided to time how often they were happening as we drove to the hospital. They came about every 2-3 minutes. We got to the hospital and went to the triage room. I had been there before and knew the drill. They would do two things: put some of the fluid on a piece of pH paper and look at some of the fluid under a microscope. If the pH paper turned blue there was a chance it was amniotic fluid (I say chance because other things can turn it blue), it turned blue right away which had not happened the last time I was there. Next she put some of the fluid on a slide and went to look at it under a microscope. Amniotic fluid is the only fluid that will look like snowflakes under a microscope. She left for a few minutes and when she came back she told us the test was positive. It was amniotic fluid. My water had broken. I broke down and started to cry. He wasn’t supposed to come yet…it was too early. My cute nurse said she was going to start crying if she stayed in there and then walked out. She came back a little bit later to check how dilated and effaced I was. I was 1cm dilated and 80% effaced. My thoughts were, “Lovely. This is going to be one long day”. I think it was about 2pm when I got admitted, IV placed, and hooked back up to the monitors. Contractions were regular and uncomfortable but not intolerable. I didn’t want the epidural quite yet because I wanted to be able to move around and walk. We discussed starting Pitocin and I asked the nurse if we could give my body a couple hours to see if I really needed it or not. We started to let our family and friends know what was going on. My parents were up in Idaho and were planning on stopping at our place for dinner that night. I called them but they didn’t answer. I left a message and called them again an hour later when I hadn’t heard back from them. When my mom answered I could tell she hadn’t gotten my message so I proceeded to tell her that we were in the hospital and that I was in labor. So…dinner wouldn’t be happening. Contractions started to get stronger and more painful in by back and I tried sitting on the edge of the bed, standing, and walking to see if it would help with the pain. The nurse also taught us to have me sit up with my feet flat and knees at a 90 degree angle and have Ry push against my knees. I can’t decide if it helped or not, but the distraction was nice :) After being checked again and my nurse noticing that the contractions were starting to get very painful, she encouraged me to get the epidural. I agreed and the anesthesiologist was in my room just minutes later. This was maybe around 4pm? After that life was good haha. We just hung out and continued to let our family know what was going on. Christen came for a visit which was very sweet of her. The day kinda runs together and I can’t keep everything quite straight. I know that the nurse checked me a couple times and was okay with my progression but felt that at some point Pitocin would have to be started. She checked me around 6pm and I could have sworn that I was 3 ½ cm but Ry says I’m delusional and that I was 4cm. I guess I’ll believe him. Anyways. My parents showed up just before 7pm and came to say hi. My nurse came in about that same time and I told her I was feeling pressure so she wanted to check me real quick as her shift was almost over. My parents stepped out into the hall and Ry went with so he could chat with them. She checked and I was complete! My parents and Ry came back for a few minutes while she let the doctor know and grabbed the oncoming nurse so we could do some practice pushes. My parents went to the waiting room and we started to push. We did 2 ½  rounds of pushes before they had me stop, cross my legs, and wait for my doctor to get there. Sometime during all of this my sweet sister-in-law showed up so she could get some pictures. Thank you Mel! Dr. Terry showed up and we started to push! I can’t remember for sure how many rounds of pushes we did with him…but it wasn’t very many, I want to say we pushed through two or three contractions. Although the day is kind of a blur and I can’t quite remember all the details, the feeling of seeing my baby boy for the first time is unforgettable. And Mel did an amazing job at capturing this moment and capturing the emotions we were feeling. They put my baby on my chest and I got to hold him and touch him for the first time. And he was screaming! Which meant that his lungs were strong. After a few minutes the NICU nurse and respiratory therapist (both there due to protocol with him being less than 36 weeks) took him to measure, weigh, and check him out. My baby boy weighed 5 pounds 6.6 ounces and measured 17 ¾ inches. Because he was doing so well they let him stay with me until we were ready to send him to the NICU to be assessed by the nurse practitioner. Lucky for us, he only stayed there about 5 hours and his only issue was low blood sugars. We were given the option to either have him eat some formula or have an IV placed to receive fluids. We chose to have him eat. Ry stayed with him the whole time and I did everything I could to get down to the NICU ASAP. They made me wait a couple hours until the epidural was more worn off and I was able to walk to the bathroom. Finally I got to go down and see my boys…my family. Words cannot express how grateful I am that Brock was born healthy with no major issues or complications, that his lungs were developed and that he got to come up to my room shortly after and that he got to come home with us. Our little man was just anxious to get here and we are so grateful to have him. Thank you so much to all our family and friends for the love and support. We appreciate the visits, the gifts, the meals, the pictures taken, and so much more. Thank you thank you thank you! We love you all so much and know that Brock is surrounded by people who love him and care about him. I truly feel blessed that Heavenly Father has entrusted us with this sweet boy and I could not be more grateful that He helped him get here safely.

A HUGE "thank you" to Mel for being there and capturing such a special moment! I absolutely love all the pictures she took and I tear up every time I watch the video she created. I had the hardest time deciding which pictures to post on the blog...there are SO many more amazing ones!! I will always treasure these. 

http://www.videosprout.com/video?id=03ed3053-a20b-90a2-5e83-00007404cf11