Mina Lucille Millburn

Mina Lucille Millburn
Mina- pronounced MEE-Nah
Lucille- after my (Rachel's) Grandmother
Millburn- Father's Surname (just in case you were wondering)

7 lbs 11oz   21''   born feb 9th 10:57 am JST

Marie,  "You're all mine!"

Kidding, Marie loves her and constantly says "aww baby, you so little, you so cute!"

Labor story: started having what were seemed like light stomach pains around tuesday evening. Brett decided he was going to write the times down for me even though I insisted I was NOT in labor. However, at about 10 pm, as I was on the phone with tech support person for our internet I realized that things were getting serious. About the time he tried to sell me something I knew we better pack Marie up and get to the hospital. I wanted to tell the guy on the phone, I was interested in his product, but I couldn't buy it now due to the fact I'm in labor. Instead I handed the phone to Brett and he got rid of him.

We called my friend Chelsea (Marie's friend, Keaton as shown in the dance video two posts back) and packed up. This hospital staff was SO NICE. My nurse reminded me of  my good friend from CA (K.S.) and she was really cool. I was only at a 2 and my water hadn't broke. In California they would have kicked us out happily, but here the nurse offered to do "whatever made us comfortable" and let Brett and I sleep in the labor and delivery room and gave me morphine. She might as well been serving drinks with umbrellas, because I felt pretty special. About 4 am they gave us the "option" to go home again, if I wanted (a lot of people at Misawa are "all natural, home birthing, no epidural, kinda people" so they are very open minded to "whatever you wanna do kind of thing." I said no thanks though, as I am sure the baby would come soon.

My doctor came and broke my water, which had merconium in it, so they just wanted me to be aware of that. I got a new nurse at shift change who was a young man. Some of you may remember I made a pretty big stink about only having female Dr. and staff with Marie, so you'll be proud to know I accepted him from the get go and I was really happy with my experience with him. He wasn't patronizing or bossy, but just wanted me to have what I needed. I have to note that at one point when I threw some medical equipment across the room he was really nice about that and didn't seem to get annoyed.  Hey, I was in labor, I wasn't liable for my actions.

I won't go into epidurals, except to say I tried to get one, but they just don't like to work out for me. The lady giving it to me was a rude-a-saurus though. She said multiple times, "my job isn't to get you pain free and the baby just fall out." Ok, weird lady just give me the epidural. And when that didn't work out my nurse brought down another anesthesiologist who was a guy in my branch. I teach his daughter in Sunday School and he actually used to be at Travis AFB.  He checked the situation and realized the epidural machine ran out of batteries....   yes it RAN OUT OF BATTERIES. At this point I hear a scurry in the hallway, "does ANYONE have any C batteries?!" No one did, but he had a secret stash so he got those.

At this point though, little Mina was "sunny side up" so her spine was pressing down on my spine and I was in what they affectionately call "back labor." I couldn't do this laying on my back now, so I annouced I was standing up. Another nurse was like, "sorry YOU cannot get OUT of bed." I showed them. I decided I was going to do this on my knees and Brett helped me turn around, lean on him so I was facing the back of the bed. Again, my nurse was cool with my split decision and made me comfortable. Brett rubbed my back everytime I had a contraction, and I only say that because I HIGHLY recommend that for anyone in labor. It REALLY helped more than any ounce of medicine could. Also may I mention I had a sinus infection for a week prior to labor, which wasn't getting any better, so I was in pretty crappy condition when this all went down. (Insert sympathy here please ).

At that point I calmly informed Brett and the nurse that I was "pushing." And my nurse quietly said, "not yet" as he seemed to think I was only at 6 at this point. Brett said "DON'T PUSH!" Umm yah.... so I calmly continued to inform people that I was pushing some more, until Mina crowned, and my nurse ran to get the doctor. The lights flipped on and I heard a scurry behind me. Wam, bam, she was born.           Great story huh? It's like a novel. I'm sure only 3 people read this and I'm gonna say it's Stephanie, Cassie, and my mom. Hopefully Katie and Christen, but you both have babies so your excused. Give yourself a pat on the back if you got through this.

Welcome Mina!  

We think she looks like me. Marie was 100% Brett. So this is an interesting change. Both beautiful babies.

She's perfect!

The name was hard to chose. We tried Molly, but she's just not a Molly. She was a very close Amelia, but maybe our next baby will be an Amelia.

We have a few different people mention Mina is the character from BramStokers Dracula. Which is weird because they played that movie the second night in the hospital. Very weird considering we only get 5 channels and the movies are very random. Anyway, we are not into vampires, just for the record. And Mina is not going to be a goth... at least not on my watch.

Brett right after his delivery.... oh wait that was me.

Things are great. We miss our families so much and wish we could share Mina with them in person.

Our family is blending really well. Here is Marie's version of playing with Mina. It works, I guess.