Welcoming Brinley Claire Albritton!

She's here!!! Brinley Claire Albritton was born on Monday, September 10th at 11:14 am. She was bigger than we expected at 8lbs, 14 oz and 20.5 inches long. My due date was 9/14/12, so I had Brinley at 39 weeks, 3 days. I had a scheduled repeat c-section, so I got to skip the 17 hours I spent after being admitted to the hospital last time and go right to the OR! Dr. McAlpine was actually ready for me early, so around 10:45 they began my c-section, and 30 minutes later, we found out I'd been carrying a sweet baby GIRL this whole time! So, so, so happy that my sweet Lily Kate gets a little sister. I never got to experience having a sister, and I can't wait for my daughters to (hopefully!) be best friends. The girls are exactly 19 months apart (Lily's DOB is 2/10/11 and Brinley was born on 9/10/12.) Lily shares a birthday with my Uncle Jimmy and Clint's best friend Steve. Brinley shares a birthday with Clint's cousin Dawn's husband, James Coste. We like to keep birthdays in the family! :)

Lily was 7 lbs even...I was expecting another 7 lb baby...but Brinley was almost 2 pounds bigger than her sister!

 

I loved seeing Brinley's name in writing for the first time! I didnt think we'd come up with a girl name that we love as much as the name Lily Kate....but I absolutely LOVE the name Brinley Claire! I like that it is not as common as Lily and that it contains the name of my Grandmother, Clare Crowley. (I liked it spelled with a "i"....I cleared it with my mom that this wouldn't be tacky for me to respell her mother's name.) My mom actually said everyone always misspelled her mom's name because Claire with an "i" is more traditional. So anyway, we decided on Claire (with an 'i') as a middle name. People keep telling me they've never heard the name Brinley or asking where we got that from. I honestly dont know where I've heard it. I dont know any Brinleys and its not a family name...I guess I probably saw it on a list of baby names? And also, I think my friend Maria had a sorority sister named Brinley who I met for 5 minites back in college? Gotta verify this with Maria.I had dinner with my girlfriends at Beth's house (my favorite nurse as pictured below!) about 3 weeks ago and my friend Jodi suggested the name Braely Claire (pronounced Bray-Lee). I actually really, really loved that name, but did not like that it wasnt phonetic and was too hard to spell. So I asked the girls if they liked Brinley Claire instead and they all did. Clint's #1 girl name was Taylor (for reasons you might can guess??? Aka- he loves Taylor Swift!). I surveyed these same girls and Kathy was blunt enough to say she didnt like Taylor. And I didnt either...its too common and I think Clint would get tired of the Taylor Swift jokes eventually. :) So thats the incredibly boring story of where we got the name Brinley Claire, for anyone who might want to know! Haha :)

 

 On a side note, my mom was so funny about helping us choose baby names. We didnt totally finalize Brinley Claire for a girl or Bennett Chase for a boy until about a week before the baby was born (Bennett Christopher and Bennett Kyle were the other contenders.) My mom is an elementary school teacher, so she printed out all the names of every child that attends DeSoto Trail to give me some ideas. This was after she drove my dad crazy by reading him every single name out loud, haha. After reading through every class roster, there werent any names I liked better than Brinley Claire or Bennett Chase. I will say though that some of the names were pretty interesting/entertaining! :)

 

 

 This is Clint, Brinley and I with my favorite nurse, Beth Cao!  Beth is a good friend of mine and I was so happy when she told me she was working on my due date and that she could be my L & D nurse if  wanted her to. Heck yah, I wanted her to! :) Beth was also my labor and delivery nurse last February when I had Lily. After puking on her in route to the OR for my c-section...she was there when my first born came out with breathing problems that turned into Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) and 10 days of hell at Shands. It was so, so nice having her there during my first eventful delivery...and just as nice having her there for my second (wonderfully!) uneventful delivery.

The part I'll remember most from Brinley's birth experience is something I dont have a picture of... Clint and I have been talking since Lily was born about how it would feel to have a baby and actually get to hear he or she cry when they come out. Silence after your baby is born is the most terrifying sound ever. So when Brinley came out and was handed to Clint, she let out the most beautiful cry I have ever heard! Clint broke down in tears holding her and listening to her cry. He said he was thinking about Lily and remembering the way he felt in the operating room when Lily was born. It was very emotional for me to see the love Clint has for our daughters. I cant even explain how thankful I am for this perfect, healthy little girl. Immediately after Clint broke down, the NICU nurse asked if she could take my picture with the baby. Its an odd angle, but you can see how red my eyes got watching Clint with Brinley. This is the first picture ever taken of sweet Brinley Claire and I.

Well, Brinley is crying...she gave me 30 minutes to blog...thanks honey! I will come back to finish this post soon :)