The Story

I was MISERABLE. (Wasn't sure I'd made that clear enough yet). At 38 1/2 weeks I had my membranes stripped, but all I got from that was a lot of false labor and even less sleep than usual. At 39 weeks, still no baby. By Saturday (39 1/2 weeks) I was cramping and contracting on and off all day, with some serious back pain. Still nothing consistent though. Same story Sunday. Paul was on back-up call and got called in and was gone all day. I was MISERABLE. (Did I already say that?) Had a breakdown or two that day. Paul got home at about 9pm. We were talking about how on earth I was going to survive another day of pregnancy and wouldn't it be perfect if I had the baby on Monday, Paul's day off? At 10pm, we were getting ready for bed...and my water broke.

HALLELUJAH!

I was standing in the kitchen having a snack, Paul was sitting at the computer in the next room. It was such a strange (and wonderful!) moment.

It went a little something like this...

ME: "What the...Paul I think my water just broke!"

PAUL: "Are you sure?"

ME, running to the bathroom: "Yeah I'm sure!"

Followed by lots of cheering from me : )

PAUL, following me to the bathroom: "What do we do?"

And this is where we experienced a role reversal. Paul, normally the calm and decisive one, really had no idea what we should do - not from a medical standpoint, just the logistics of it all. Me? Calm, cool, and collected.

I told him to start packing clothes for the kids while I called a friend to see if we could drop them off for the night. I got changed and threw the last minute things into my hospital bag while Paul woke the kids and loaded them into the car. I called Labor and Delivery to let them know we were on our way, and then called my mom so she could book a flight.

After dropping off the kids (who were a little groggy and confused, but excited as well) we got checked in and settled at the hospital. I was still only at a 3, which I'd been a week earlier at my doctors appointment (disappointing considering all the contractions I'd had throughout the week). I was having contractions at this point and they were starting to get painful. They told me I could have the epidural whenever I wanted it and for some reason, I hesitated. Seriously, do I never learn? Paul looked at me like I was crazy and told me to, "Get it now." I did, which turned out to be a wise decision : ) My contractions weren't real regular so to speed things up a bit they started me on pitocin. The baby didn't like that very much though, her heart rate kept dropping, so they turned it off. But it gave me the jumpstart I needed because after that my contractions were regular and strong and I went the rest of the way on my own. The baby's heart rate was still dropping here and there though so they put me on oxygen and had to come in periodically and move me from one side to the other - my epidural was so good I couldn't even wiggle my toes at this point. All of this, combined with the fact that I always get the shakes when I'm in labor meant I got zero sleep that night. Paul slept some of course. When it was time to push things happened really quickly - it was less than 10 minutes until our baby was here, arriving at 6:26 am. It was an exciting moment, looking down to discover it was a little girl. She was such a sweetheart, not crying much at all, just laying in my arms and staring up at us. I also remember feeling instant relief that I wasn't pregnant anymore : )

So that's our story.

My mom caught the first flight out that morning - luckily Avery arrived before she boarded her plane so we could tell her it was a girl.

Paul brought the kids over later that afternoon to meet their new baby sister, whom they were both very excited about.

And Paul and I worked on a name for our little girl. It took us a day and a half, we decided on Avery Jane the day we came home from the hospital.

And we couldn't be happier with her.

Here she is in her going home outfit.

A few days later my mom had some fun with her new camera and my pretty baby girl.

We love our Avery Jane.