Baby Avery

Well, baby Avery finally decided to make her appearance three days after her due date! I was due on a Wednesday, and I went into labor late Friday night/early Saturday morning. I went to the doctor on that Friday afternoon and was still only 2 cm but was about 80% effaced. I still was not really having any contractions at that point though, and I actually commented to Tom that I felt like I was closer to going into labor a month before. Patience is not my best virtue, and I was ready to meet my little girl! I could not sleep that Friday night because I was having a lot of pressure in my back and it made my legs ache. Still no contractions though. Around 3 or 4am I started having what I thought might be contractions about 7 minutes apart. But they weren't very strong and I couldn't decide whether they were actually contractions or not. Then they stopped completely after about 30 minutes. I went back to sleep for about 2 hours, and at some point during that time I dreamed that I had the baby. Well, at about 6:20am I woke up with really strong, no doubt about it contractions that were 3-4 minutes apart. My doctor had told me to call when I had contractions 10 minutes apart for a whole hour, but we apparently skipped that part of labor. So I called the doctor and headed to the hospital. And we did make it to the hospital in time, despite the 45 minute drive to get there! I was about 5-6 cm by the time I got there and got an epidural around 11am. By 1:30, I was still only about 8cm and had not progressed much in the couple of hours before, so we thought we were settling in for a while. At about 3:15 the nurse came in because the baby's heartbeat got really faint on the monitor due to the baby having moved down. The nurse tried to locate it better in a couple of places but couldn't get a good read. So she said she would check me and then call the doctor in. But when she pulled the blankets down, Avery's head was already out. No wonder she couldn't find the heartbeat! Before the doctor could even get in the room from down the hall, Avery just wiggled herself the rest of the way out--no pushing required. I guess I had a really good epidural! It was actually quite perfect though, and I felt like it was pretty natural (other than the epidural) because there were no bright lights, no mirrors, no stirrups and nobody yelling at me to push. When the doctor came in a few seconds later, I was already holding little Avery! So I guess I am good at having babies, but my doctor was about 7 months pregnant at the time I delivered and I'm pretty sure she hates me right now because I had such an easy delivery :)

I am trying breast feeding again. The first week and a half was pretty dicey, with tons of pain. I had a cracked nipple on one side and had to stop nursing on that side and started pumping. Then I got a blister from pumping. And then I was just in a no win situation for about three days until all of that healed, so I loaded up on ibuprofen and shed a lot of tears. Things are finally going a little more smoothly now, so hopefully the worst is over and it will be smooth sailing from here out. The good part is that Avery really likes to sleep at night. So she hasn't really been waking up much during the night. I am still waking her up a couple of times a night right now until she gets some good weight gain, but sometimes she is only interested in sleeping. Not a problem for me :)

--Amanda