Brenden has come to make us the Fringer Family of 4!

This birth experience with Brenden was so different than how the events took place when Sierra was born. With her, my contractions started 9 days early, earlier than what I was ready for since I didn't yet know what to expect with the pain of contractions. With Brenden my water broke in the early hours of Monday the 22nd. Since I had expected contractions to start immediately afterward and I felt nothing, again I didn't really know what was happening. A few hours later I called my doctor just to let her know that I had no idea what was going on so she asked if I could come in to the office right away. Within a few minutes of seeing her, she sent me right over to the hospital to check in telling me that I should be having my baby sometime that day! We were very excited and she said that it was so nice having good news like that first thing on a Monday morning.

We were wrong to be so excited. My contractions never started even with the IV meds they gave me to kickstart things. So after a full day of waiting on Monday, the doctor decided to take me off of the meds to try to give me a good night sleep and then try again in the morning. I was very thankful for that because I was hungry! So I got a small late night dinner, a sleeping pill (also thankful for that) and then a lite breakfast in the morning before getting the ball rolling. After a morning of meds my body finally decided to take over and Brenden was born at 1:20 in the afternoon! It was a long process but a fairly pain-free one. Here is a pic of how I spent a portion of my first day in the hospital.




Sierra had a great time having 3 nights of sleepovers with friends. She was in great hands and we knew she'd be having the time of her life. A few hours after Brenden joined us she came to spend a little while with us in the room. She was very excited to meet him and it was so cute to watch her with him.



And here he is as we prepared to head home after being in the hospital for over 3 days!

Yes, I was happy to leave too :)

All kinds of new things!

Where to start? There is the obvious new addition to our family, Brenden Allen Fringer! But since he is the newest change I'll save him for later.

First, we have been very happy with Sierra as she has fully embraced her big girl bed. We have had our share of issues but overall I've been impressed with how she is dealing with the obvious freedom that a toddler bed could give her. Nap time has been the hardest challenge since she isn't usually tired enough to stay in bed when there are so many books to look at on her shelf. But if sleep doesn't happen I am trying to get two hours of 'room time' for her. Here is a picture of her the first night in the big girl bed.

Next was the fun we had with getting Sierra ready for her baby brother. It was very cute to hear her take on what would happen. She often said "when baby brother comes out, he's gonna drink hims milk, and sleep in hims crib, and play with hims toys!" Then right at the end she started telling us that Baby Brother was in her tummy which was just too cute. Here she is proudly displaying her baby tummy.

Next I'm so happy to report that Sierra has gone pee-pee on the potty before bedtime the past two nights! I'm very excited about that because for several months she hasn't had much of an interest in sitting on the potty. When I've asked she's very politely said, "no thank you". So last night her Mommom asked her if she wanted to sit on the potty and she said yes. Then tonight she asked to go sit all on her own! Yeah, let's hope it continues!

And finally, for some cute pictures of Brenden, please see the next post.