Braddock Benjamin Heiner

Our fourth child was born September 17th, 2012 at 5:16pm.  I'm going to tell his birth story so if you don't want to know (it really isn't graphic) then I'd suggest just skipping down to the pictures.

We found out about 3-4 weeks before his due date that he was frank breech meaning his head and feet were up in my rib cage which is not the correct way.  Doctors are hardly ever taught how to deliver breech babies any more and besides it's suppose to be insanely painful and more risky to deliver breech.  My options were a c-section or they could try to turn the baby around manually on my stomach.  Our previous baby, Bracken, had also been breech.  We choose to do the ECV, turning baby, with Bracken and were successful so we decided to try the same with this baby.  This time was much more painful.  It took a lot longer to turn him around.  He was far to content being wrong side down.  But he did turn!  It was decided that I would be immediately induced to reduce the chance of him turning back around.

We had wonderful friends taking care of our kids for us.  Inara and Bracken stayed with my visiting teacher and her kids while Entegra was at school most of the time but then went to a friend's house after school.  Entegra and her friend were absolutely thrilled about.

For the first 2-3 hours after being induced, I slept and Benjamin watched his cartoons.  After that things got more painful and I eventually asked for pain killers.  I don't do epidurals because they scare me to death, but if I'd known he wanted to come out ear first, I would've given it more consideration.  Yeah, the Doctor said, "Oh wow, baby wants to come out ear first!  He must have a flexible neck." Ugh.

After about 3 more hours of labor, it was time to push.  That was horrible.  Worst then all the other babies, or at least it seemed that way.  I'm so glad Benjamin was able to be there.  I really needed his support this time...and his fingers, I think I crushed them.  Finally he was out and I was done pushing...THANK GOODNESS.  They plopped him on my tummy and the first thing I thought was, "There really was a baby in there," the second thing was, "He's so small."  I know, I'm a goof ball.

What a beautiful baby he is.  His brother and sisters took to him instantly.  Bracken was constantly looking into is hospital bed to get a better look at him.