Lady Brett

Miss Brett Louise Benson

For the past few weeks, we were aware that our baby's original due date (July 4, 2012) might need some adjustment.  Despite the fact that Kate and Davis were both born a week or so after their due dates, the nurses had told Jaime that this baby was measuring a bit ahead of schedule.  And Jaime's doctor had told her that if the baby didn't flip over into a vertex position with her head down and instead remained breech, that the baby would need to be delivered via C-section.

On Tuesday (6/19), Jaime saw her doctor for her 37 week check-up.  The doctor confirmed that the baby was still breech and that it was very unlikely for the baby to flip at this point.  So he scheduled the C-section for Friday, June 28, as he didn't want to wait for the due date and risk Jaime going into labor.  So Jaime started to try to get used to the idea that despite having two relatively simple vaginal deliveries that she now had to have a C-section. The prospect of major surgery wasn't something she was looking forward to.

That night Jaime and I were watching t.v. (and I believe Jaime was enjoying her evening ritual of a bowl of Rite Aid's Chocolate Malted Crunch ice cream) when she suddenly got a strange look on her face and said "Oh my . . . my water just broke!"  We realized that meant we were going to have the baby THAT NIGHT.  I called her doctor and he told her to come on into the hospital and that he'd meet us there.

Unlike the previous two pregnancies where we had a "go bag" packed and our plan of attack for who would watch the kids, etc., we were totally unprepared for this.  I grabbed a duffel bag, threw some of Jaime's clothes into it and we jumped in the car.  A good friend came to sit with the kids until Jaime's mother could get to our house from Pasadena.  As we drove to the hospital, I attempted to run a few red lights (come on, a baby delivery is one of the few free red-light passes you get in life) and nearly got t-boned by a pickup truck in the process.  Jaime calmly asked if I could try to make sure that we didn't have to arrive at the hospital in the back of an ambulance.

We didn't have to wait long at all when we got to the hospital, where they prepped Jaime and I was told to gown up.  I knew I'd only be watching but I still scrubbed my arms up to my elbows.  I'd seen ER plenty of times so I knew the drill.

Meanwhile, they took Jaime in to administer her spinal block.  While I waited, I texted family members and let them know that the baby would be arriving that night.  Once they got her anesthesia settled, they brought me in and had me sit behind the "privacy curtain", up toward Jaime's head, where I couldn't see a thing they were doing (I have a feeling the privacy curtain was designed by the hospital's lawyers, not the modesty patrol).  But when her doctor came in to start the procedure, he brushed against the curtain and it partially fell back, allowing me to view the entire procedure.  Every time I see surgery I'm struck by how not gentle it is.  But the doctors did great - I soon saw baby's feet and legs, then I could see her hips and trunk, then her arms, and finally her head popped out, with a bit of extra tugging.  The entire thing took just a few minutes.

The nurses got her cleaned off and I was struck by the position she naturally assumed - hips splayed out wide.  I'm sure that was the position she'd been sitting in for weeks, and she wasn't about to stop now.

 She was officially born at 12:21, June 20, 2012, weighing 7 lbs. 9 oz. and measuring 20" long (which is not a bad size for a largemouth bass either).  Being two weeks early didn't seem to affect her size or development, and not having to have her head squeezed during delivery meant that her head was perfectly round.  The doctors and nurses were wonderful and soon our little one was cleaned up and warming up in the baby oven (that may not be the technical term for it).

It was a few hours until Jaime had recovered enough that she could be moved into her recovery room and they brought the baby to her.  We were incredibly grateful that everything had turned out fine.  Ultimately, Jaime feels that it was a blessing for the baby to be born that night so she didn't have to think about the C-section for 9 more days; we just got everything over and done with.

One other effect of the early arrival was that we hadn't really been able to settle on a name yet, thinking we still had a week or two to make the final decision.  Like a Hollywood feature, we'd been using a "working title" -- Jaime had recently read Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and really fell in love with the name Brett. While Hemingway's heroine Lady Brett Ashley is certainly not a woman you'd tell your daughter to pattern her life after, Mr. Hemingway's story reminded us that Brett was originally a woman's name.  While I think the name is strong and simple (something I loved about the name Kate) and has the added appeal of referring to someone from Brittany or Britain (a place special to me), once she had arrived I wasn't really sure how I felt about actually naming her Brett; I'm not sure the Hemingway point will make much difference to third-grade boys looking to find something to tease about.  But ultimately we both really loved the name, and with Davis as her older brother, I have a feeling she won't have too much trouble with third grade boys anyway.  The girls may be a different story.

We are naming her Brett Louise Benson, with her middle name being a tribute to two very important Louises, my mother and Jaime's grandmother.  The kids love Baby Brett and can't get enough of her.