Introducing.....

Ava Renee Bailey

born May 14, 2010

at 4:50am

weight: 6.12lbs

height: 19 3/4 inches

Andrew first meeting Ava.

5.14.2010

5.15.2010-1 day old

Getting ready to go home.

Andrew holding his baby sister.

On our way home.

As most of you know I was supposed to be induced at 7am on Friday, May 14th. On Thursday night at 11pm as I was putting clean sheets on our bed my water broke. My water didn't break with Andrew so it took me by surprise. I quickly called the hospital and they confirmed that it was my water that broke and told me that I should come to the hospital. I then called my parents who I had a hard time getting ahold of since they were both sleeping. When I got ahold of them they quickly came over to take care of Andrew who was sleeping. The whole way to the hospital my contractions were going crazy! We arrived at the hospital at 12:01am on the 14th. The set me up in a room and checked me...I was at 4cm. They asked if I wanted an epidural and I said yes, but that I didn't need it right away. They told me that if I didn't get it soon, I would miss my window because this baby was coming fast. So they brought in the anesthesiologist, got my epidural which worked for a bit and then started wearing off on my right side so they had to give me more. Getting an epidural while having non stop contractions is not fun! My nurse said that there is no way I could have had this baby without an epidural. My contractions were one after the other with only a few seconds in between. It barely gave time for the baby to rest in between contractions. I quickly went from 4cm, to 6cm, to 9.5cm and when I got to a 10 they wanted me to wait to push and let the baby labor down for about an hour and a half. I think this really helped out my active labor. At about 4:20ish they wanted me to start pushing. I used the mirror, like I did with Andrew, and it really helped me focus. Ava was born with only 27 minutes of pushing! So much shorter than my 2hr 44 minute labor with Andrew! Worst part of labor was the constant shakes that started as soon as my water broke and lasted for almost 2 hours after I had Ava. They were horrible! The nurse even had a hard time taking my blood pressure which tended to be low during the whole labor process. Unfortunately my doctor wasn't there to deliver Ava, but we did have a wonderful on call doctor, Drea Olmstead who was amazing! As soon as Ava arrived she was crying. Crazy thing is, she was sunny side up which makes it even harder to deliver! She cried a lot during the first 2 hours of her arrival because she had so much fluid in her and she had to be put under the warmer because her temperature was low. We were awake for the rest of the early morning and were so excited to see Andrew and how he would react to his new baby sister. He arrived around 9:45 that morning with my parents. He came bringing Ava a gift and was so excited to meet her! He spent the morning with us, went back to have a nap at my parents house and then came back to the hospital that night. He didn't want to leave our side and spent a lot of time cuddling with me and Ava. He brought Ava a glow worm doll and she gave him his much anticipated horse trailer (he had been asking for this for about a month!). Ava did great her first night, only coming in to feed 1 time during the night. We put her in the nursery in hopes of getting some sleep. The next morning we decided we wanted to go home a day early. My parents brought Andrew to the hospital and we all left around noon to go home. Andrew was pretty excited that we were all going home together in mommy's car. We stopped at Panera on the way home for a quick bite to eat....Ava's 1st outing :) It was so nice to get home and just be together as a family of 4! Thank you to everyone who came and visited us at the hospital and who prayed for us during pregnancy, labor and delivery. We have a healthy beautiful little girl!