Avery's first month

Today, Avery is 4 weeks old. We cannot believe how fast the past month has gone and we are so lucky to have such a beautiful baby girl! Avery has made leaps and bounds in the past month. When we first brought her home, she was screaming from 9pm-6am and had her nights and days confused. fast forward to last night, Avery slept from 10-2am, woke up and ate, went back to bed from 3-6:30am and then ate again and napped throughout the day! We are able to, on most nights, get at least 3 solid hours of sleep at a time-if you have not yet had a baby, you will one day understand how amazing 3 hours of sleep can be!

Avery is a very strong, alert baby. She enjoys being held and rocked, she loves her swing, hates her crib and pac n play, and does not like being changed at all! Her favorite thing in the world in our family room fan...there is a domed light that she enjoys staring at. Any time we need to calm her down, we just tell her to "look at the light" and it works like a charm! Avery does not really like tummy time, however she has been able to turn her head in both directions when lying on her tummy. She can also lift her head and hold it in place for about 15 seconds at a time.

Avery is currently trying to find her thumb to suck on, but in the meanwhile she likes her nuk after she eats and while she is trying to fall asleep. She seems to be very interested in all of the new things around her because she really fights falling asleep. As long as we rock her, dance with her and sing to her, she seems to settle down. We have also started playing a game with her where we stick our tongue out at her and she will stick hers back out at us. If we open our mouth really wide, she will do the same. It is amazing how many things babies can pick up so early on!

At her last appointment, two weeks ago, Avery weighed in at 8lbs 12oz, she goes for her one month check up on Tuesday, November 24th. I am excited to see how much she has grown in this past month!

Avery Kae is here!

I will start at the beginning...

On Wednesday, October 21st Jake and I went into labor and delivery around 10pm because Avery had been unusually quiet all day. We were hooked up to a non stress test and were told that due to fetal heart rate decelerations, they wanted to keep us over night. Clearly, I did not sleep a wink because I was worried about Avery and anticipating what would happen the next morning. Around 6:45am our doctor came in and I was around 3cm, with out much progress even though I had been contracting every 2-5 minutes since 10pm the night before. The doctor told us that she believed we should induce, although it might raise the risk of a C-section. We decided to go ahead with it, because due to Avery's size there was a good chance we would need a C-section anyway.

Around 7:00am, they broke my water and started pitocin. I was contracting every 2-4 minutes and mostly all of the contractions were "coupling" meaning I would get two strong contractions back to back, each lasting over a minute. Well, Avery did not like this and her heart rate continued to decelerate. The nurses placed me on my side and for the next two hours I was not allowed to move at all, because if I moved, Avery would begin to show signs of distress. Around 10:45am the doctor came back and told me that Avery was not handling the pitocin or the contractions very well and since she was not moving down and I was not dilating, they would need to do a C-section.

Jake and I were ready to meet Avery and we wanted her to be here safe and sound, so we signed off on the C-section. Around 11:15 they stopped the pitocin and began prepping us for surgery. Jake was not allowed in the operating room until the surgery had begun. Within 10 minutes, (and a lot of pulling, tugging, pushing and manipulating...she was so big and so high up that they had trouble getting her out even with the C-section) she was finally here and we heard her cry at 12:03pm. Words cannot express how beautiful of a moment this was.

Jake was allowed to meet Avery and bond with her right away as I was finishing up the surgery for the next 50 minutes and was in recovery for the next hour. I was finally able to hold my daughter around 2pm.

My recovery could not have gone any smoother. I was able to refuse all pain medications post-surgery, I think I was just on a high from finally having Avery here. I was out of bed and walking the halls within 24 hours and everything is healing perfectly. I think the hardest part was the fact that I had to go over 42 hours without eating because of the induction and surgery. My first meal (chicken broth) was amazing:)

After 4 days and 5 nights in the hospital we were able to come home on Sunday, October 25th. We are adjusting to life as a family of three and could not be any happier. Avery is actually just waking up, so I will post pictures and more details on her first week of life later on today!

40 weeks!

Today is officially our due date, we are so happy to have made it all the way to 40 weeks, but we are ready to finally meet Avery. We had an interesting appointment yesterday. Ashley is dilated to 2cm and things are progressing nicely. We had a non stress test to check Avery's heart rate in reaction to the contractions. Ashley is contracting regularly every 8-10 minutes and although Avery looked good on the NST, her heart rate was not accelerating- this is something they like to see happen every so often for about 10 seconds at a time. They sent us immediately over to the hospital for continued monitoring. On the way there, we grabbed something to eat because the doctor said it was possible Avery was just sleepy and needed some sugar. So when we got to the hospital, they monitored Avery for about 2 hours and everything looked good, she was more awake, having accelerations and only had a few decelerations (something they do not like seeing). They released us around 3pm and the nurse said that she expects to see us back by the end of the week because things are moving as they should.

Ashley is officially off of work, so she is just running errands and relaxing around the house...waiting for the signs of labor! With having so many contractions, the doctor told us not to even call until Ashley is unable to talk or move through the contractions, since she is pretty used to them at this point. We are hoping to have Avery in our arms by the weekend, so we will keep you posted.

We have another doctors appointment on Thursday. They will be doing another NST and an ultrasound to measure Avery's size. If she is as big as they expect, they will more than likely induce on Thursday or Friday. However, if she is measuring "normal" then they will not induce until Oct. 29th (a day after our 3 year anniversary)! However, everyone is thinking she will come on her own before next week, but only time will tell!

Thank you for all of your continued support and prayers!!

38 and 39 week appointments

Well, we do not have too much to report. At last week's appointment, we were told that Ashley was 50% effaced and at -1 station. This week things looked much the same, so not too much progress from last week. Avery is nice a cozy and it seems like she might fool all of us and come after her due date (which is next Tuesday by the way). The good thing is that Avery's growth has finally slowed down and she is now measuring as she should, although she is still probably going to be about a 8.5lb baby.

Ashley is doing great, although we are both pretty anxious and ready to finally meet our daughter! We were told that if things do not progress by our 41 week apt (Oct 26) we will be induced that week. So, there is a chance we could have an anniversary baby....although we are not exactly hoping for that to happen :) Keep your fingers crossed that everything progresses as it should and that we have a baby sometime this week!! We'll keep you all posted!

37 Week Appointment

Well, there is no real news to share this week! Avery is still "floating around" and has yet to "drop". She is officially considered full term today, so anytime between now and October 20th it's fair game so to speak. Jake thinks she will be coming this weekend and Ashley is still thinking closer to October 10th, only time will tell!

Ashley is feeling great, we are walking about 2 miles everyday and she'll continue to work until Avery decides to make her grand entrance! We have everything ready to go, the car seat is installed, her room is ready, everything is put together, now all we need is a baby! We will keep you all posted. Our next appointment is on Tuesday, October 6th, so we will post next Wednesday. Hopefully by then we see some progress!

36 week appointment

Yesterday was our 36 week appointment and everything looks good. Nothing is going on yet and Avery is still hanging out up in Ashley's rib cage, but sometime within the next week or two she will drop into position for delivery. Her heartbeat is a strong 155bpm and she is a very busy baby. The doctor said (once again) that she is measuring about a week and a half ahead, so she is currently measuring at about 37.5 weeks. Our next appointment is on Monday, Sept 28th, so we will see if there is any progress at that point. We will be considered full term on Tuesday, September 29th, so she is more than welcome to make her appearance at any point thereafter. We'll post again next week!!

34 week ultrasound

Avery looked perfect at her ultrasound this morning. Her kidney is no longer dilated and everything looked exactly as it should. She seemed to be enjoying breakfast during the ultrasound because she kept opening and closing her mouth and swallowing the amniotic fluid. We were able to get some really nice pictures of her face and we will post those later this week. Her cheeks are so chubby, and it looks like she actually has Jake's nose! We were told that she weighs around 6 pounds and to expect about a 9 pound baby if we go all the way to 40 weeks....but again we think we will have a baby by the 10th of October, but who knows:) Avery has also moved positions again, her head is down and she is facing the world, with her back against Ashley's spine. So if that back pain starts up again for Ashley, we'll know why. Our next appointment is on September 21st, and from then on out we will be seeing the doctor every week.

We are getting ready for Avery's arrival bit by bit. We (with the help of of Grandma Kathy) washed all of her clothes, bedding and toys and finished setting up the nursery. Only 42 days to go!