I am writing this to detail one of the best and worst weeks of my life and to explain how Brittany Kear, my wife's labor and delivery nurse, played an amazing part. I was notified recently that my brother, who lives in Michigan, passed away. To make things worse I would not be able to attend his funeral as my wife was 39 weeks pregnant and was scheduled to be induced on because of a history of blood clots. This was a very difficult week but I knew my brother would have wanted me to stay with her. It was our first and we were extremely nervous when we were checking into Labor and Delivery not knowing what to expect and extremely emotional with everything that had already happened during the week. Our night nurse was very nice and stayed with us at the beginning of the induction process. Upon her shift ending, she introduced us to Brittany, which we would forever be grateful for. During the day we got to know Brittany who not only stayed with us and really got to know us but shared details about her life as well. The bedside manner she displayed was top notch and really made my wife comfortable which was not an easy task considering the position she was in with strangers in and out of the room all night and day. Along with making sure my wife was comfortable the whole time Brittany was also teaching a young clinical student and explaining what she was doing very carefully every step of the way. This was huge for my wife considering she is an elementary teacher and knows how powerful those teaching moments can be.
Upon checking in my wife reviewed her very short birth plan with her night nurse and then again shared it with Brittany.
She had three things on it and they were 1) vaginal birth 2) delayed cord clamping and 3) I needed to cut the cord. Once my wife's active labor started, Brittany really stepped up. She was cheering my wife along and helping me keep her spirits high, even after 20 hours of practically no sleep or food. As we were getting closer to our daughter's birth, our baby was wedged under my wive's pubic bone and things were starting to get pretty painful and tiring. After the first hour of active labor, my wife was asking for a C-section and Brittany was so positive and kept telling her to remember what her birth plan was. She even asked my wife if she would give up this easy at the gym. Since Brittany took the time to get to know Amanda and myself throughout the day, she knew that we were active Crossfitters and that my wife was quite competitive. This is just one of the times that her getting to know us helped out in a huge way as she quickly made my wife want to keep pushing for another hour and a half.
As we approached 7 pm (Brittany's time to leave work) she made it clear that she would not be leaving until our baby girl came into this world and she could meet her. She ended up staying well over that night as our baby did not show up until 6:34 pm and by the time she was out, cleaned up, and Brittany fulfilled the rest of her nurse duties, Brittany's replacement didn't take over until it was closer to 8 pm.
Meeting our baby for the first time was without a doubt the single most emotional part of our lives as she was made possible because of an IVF cycle that started about 18 months earlier. With two failed Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) cycles and countless months of unsuccessful attempts, we were at the end of our hopes until we got a positive this time. Having never experienced this kind of thing I really did not know what to expect but can say that I would have never expected how they ended up.
With the death of my brother leaning heavy on both of us and the anticipation of our daughter, we were both emotionally drained. When the amazing doctors finally got her head to pop out from under her mom's pubic bone she yelled out as if it were her own baby coming into the world. The moment my wife and I laid our eyes on her we both broke down into tears along with Brittany, the nurse in training and the doctor who delivered her. They were all so great but we cannot say enough about Brittany and want to make sure her amazing skill, bedside manner do not go unnoticed. We have told everyone who we could how great Brittany was, how personable she was and just how much her being our nurse that night helped us through an incredibly emotional night that ended an incredibly emotional 18 months.