Melanie Brooke Merrell was born at 7:23 AM on July 13, 2009. She weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces and was 19 and ¼ inches long. Here’s the story. It was Sunday morning and we were going about our Sunday as usual with Allan preparing to go to his meetings before church since he is the Executive Secretary. We had spent some time debating whether we should go up to Phoenix for our Nephew, Nathan’s blessing which was taking place at church that morning. After pondering it for some time, we decided it would be best for Allan to stay home instead of going since that was our gut feeling about it. Around 10:00 AM, I started feeling my first contractions that seemed to be something more than Braxton Hicks. I told Allan to go ahead and go to his meetings since even if I was in labor, it was going to be a while before we needed to go to the hospital and before the contractions became regular. Boy was I right! Timothy and I got ready to go to church and headed over. It was during Sacrament meeting that I started to think I was in more than just false labor as I watched the clock and was having contractions regularly every 10 minutes. We were sitting in the pews with me watching the clock, Timothy in his umbrella stroller and Allan on the end of the isle when one of the older Sisters in the ward collapsed right by us and Allan jumped up to help keep her from falling to the ground. She had momentarily passed out and the 3 gentleman who caught her, including Allan, walked her out into the foyer supporting her weight. I felt a need to help because I am a wilderness first responder and I wasn’t sure what kind of medical professionals there were in our ward. Fortunately, because it was Johnny Elidge’s mission fairwell that day, there was a doctor from Safford attending our sacrament meeting. He spoke to the woman while I kept records, citing things such as her Dr., what medications she was on, allergies, chief complaints, vitals, etc. Her pulse had dropped down to 40 which is what caused her to pass out. The EMT’s came and took her to the hospital and since Sacrament was nearly over and Allan and I had already decided we were only going to stay for sacrament, we came home. On a side note, I later found out that the woman received a pacemaker and is doing just fine now. When we got home and the contractions were still coming fairly regularly around 10 minutes apart, we decided to go for a walk to try to move things along. Hours later, we decided to take another walk while my mom looked after Timothy for us. Things were just not progressing and my contractions were stuck at around 10 minutes apart so I started to wonder if it really was just false labor. Night fell and around 8:00 I decided to get some rest and went to bed. Three hours later, at 11:00 I couldn’t sleep anymore because the contractions had become more painful. I got out of bed and we began timing the contractions. They were starting to get closer together ranging in space from 4 minutes to 14 minutes apart. Around 12:30 pm we decided it was real labor and because they were getting quite painful and closer together. We prepared to go to the hospital and called my mom to have her come down from Westward Look Resort to take care of Timothy for us. We got our bags together, packed the car, gave my mom the car seat for Timothy and made her a little bed on the couch and headed off to the hospital unsure of whether we would be admitted or not. When we got there, the nurses checked me and I was 5 cm dilated and 60 percent effaced so they admitted me. They gave me an IV to pump some fluids in me in an effort to perk the baby up and move things along. After about an hour, they unhooked me and let me move around freely for a while. We decided we’d watch the second Harry Potter film to try to help entertain ourselves while we waited for Melanie’s debut. I sat on a birthing ball bouncing and rocking as the contractions got stronger and stronger. Allan massaged my back when they came and offered a great deal of support. Later on they hooked me back up to monitoring and the IV for a while, then I came back off, then they decided it was time to check me again. After I laid down on the bed, I could not get back up because the contractions were so unbelievably painful! I was at about 7 cm and moving into transition. I labored into transition for a couple of hours before I began pleading for an epidural. When they put in the order, the anesthesiologist was giving someone else an epidural and I had to wait 45 minutes. I have never felt such excruciating pain in my life. I was just begging and pleading for the pain to go away and asking Allan and the nurse over and over again “why does labor have to be this painful!?” Allan did his best to help me and Dr. Coppola arrived. Shortly after Dr. Coppola arrived, they gave me the epidural, even though I was between an 8 and 9, then they popped my bag of waters and I labored on. I watched the screen contentedly and comfortably as the contractions grew closer together and stronger. I could still feel them, but it was bearable. About 45 minutes after receiving the epidural, I let the nurse know I was starting to feel some pressure and it was time to push! After about 4 pushing sessions, her head started coming out. The pain from that was different than the contractions. It stung really bad and Dr. Coppola was working hard to make sure I didn’t tear this time so there were periods where I had to stop pushing and wait while things stretched out. Dr. Coppola said, “I can see hair. Lots of black hair!” I pushed on and soon, at 7:23 AM, she was out! They put her straight onto my chest and sucked her mouth out with her right there before my eyes. They wrapped her in a blanket and let me nurse her for quite a while. It was a really great nursing session! I was so happy to have my baby here and she was gorgeous and healthy! After I nursed her for a while, they cleaned her up and put her hat on, etc. Then, they let us take some pictures and left us for a while so we could bond. Allan and I looked at her and tried to decide what her name was. We had a fairly extensive list of names that could have been possibilities. Our favorite going into the delivery was Ella Brooke. Some of the others were Ella Faith, Ella Hope, Ella Joy, Acacia Renee, Eliza Renee, Emma, Hannah, and Hayden. We spent some time pondering what we thought we should call her and we both decided that none of the names fit! Then, the name Melanie Brooke popped into Allan’s head and it fit her perfect! So, we were pretty sure that was what we were going to call her, but hadn’t decided 100% yet. After a while they took baby girl to the nursery and Allan went with them to make sure they didn’t give her any binky’s or formula and just to watch. I got some much needed rest, wrote in the baby book, and waited for them to bring my baby back to me. Allan came into the room slightly ahead of the baby so we could discuss the name briefly and we decided we would call her Melanie Brooke Merrell. Timothy, my mom, dad, and Justin all came to visit her briefly. Timothy’s first reaction to Melanie was “baby!” I don’t think he fully realized that Melanie was actually going to be coming home with us. He looked at her, touched her hands, pointed out her body parts, and then decided to run around the hospital room. I do think that he realized that Melanie was the baby we had been talking about that was in mommy’s belly and now she wasn't anymore. After the brief visit, everyone left including Allan so he could take care of Timothy through the night. Melanie and I spent 24 precious hours in the hospital bonding, nursing, and sleeping and were released from the hospital the morning of July 14th around 10:00 AM. My dad got into town the night of the 13th, so he and my mom were looking after Timothy for us when Allan came to pick me up from the hospital. When we got home, we reintroduced Melanie to Timothy. The first thing he did was run to his toy bin and grab one of his waffle balls and put it on Melanie’s lap while she was in her car seat. We thought it was so cute because we have been reading him a book about becoming a big brother and at the end of the book the big brother plays with a ball with baby. He put two and two together and when we brought her home, he wanted to play ball with her. After we told him that she is too little to play ball, he started to point out all of her body parts again. His first reaction to her was very sweet. Between then and now, he has been off and on with her. Sometimes he’s very sweet and loves to give her kisses, and let her hold his hand with her fingers. One time when I was nursing her in the living room, he hit her on the head with his hand though. It was soft and didn’t hurt her, but still un-nerving. I know it will be an adjustment process for him. It has been great having family around to help entertain him and help him have fun during the adjustment phase. We’ve had Melanie home for 6 days now. Physically, my recovery has been very smooth, but I am having a little bit of a harder time handling it emotionally. I am somewhat overwhelmed with the responsibility of being a mother of two. I love both Timothy and Melanie with all of my heart. It wouldn’t be humanly possible to love them more. I want to be a good mother for them and to teach them good things. I know it is my responsibility to do that. I’m a bit anxious because tomorrow Allan has his first day of work and I’m frightened to have that responsibility be mine alone. It’s difficult to nurse Melanie and keep Timothy entertained at the same time. I always feel like I am neglecting one of the children. Since Melanie will only sleep if she is being held, it limits my ability to interact with Timothy as regularly as I’d like to and also my ability to lovingly discipline him when it is necessary. If I try to just put Melanie to bed, she ends up crying and I think she’s too young to cry it out. So, a lot of the time I feel like I’m doing something wrong even though I’m doing my best. I know that we will adjust over time and I hope that with Heavenly Father’s guidance I can recover my emotional strength. One thing I always try to remind myself is that I need to enjoy every moment I can. That is something I have been struggling with since bringing Melanie home, but it is so important. Timothy is no longer my baby. He turns 2 on August 6th. He speaks in sentences now and is an active, rambunctious, climbing, running, jumping little boy. The time has really flown by unbelievably fast since he was a baby. I need to enjoy him in his toddlerhood and I need to enjoy Melanie in her babyhood because the time will vanish into the past shortly. I want to try to be happy and not sweat the small stuff so I can look back with no regrets and with happy memories of loving moments. I need to move forward with confidence and remember that one thing my children will always have is a knowledge of how loved they are.