Avery Grace is here!

Avery Grace made her appearance sooner than expected at 2:51 this morning, December 8th at 37 weeks 1 day. She weighs 7 pounds and is 19 inches long. I was in labor for 39 hours, including 1 1/2 hours of pushing.

I started having timeable contractions at noon on Saturday. I went to the hospital at about 4pm to get checked out. I was 3cm and 50 % effaced. They said they would monitor me for 2 hours and decide if they were keeping me or not. After two hours I was still 3cm but 75 % effaced. They decided to send me home. After a sleepless night of contractions every 2-4 minutes I went back to the hospital at 5am. I was 4cm and 75% this time and again they wanted to watch me for 2 hours. At 7am I was 5cm and 75% so they decided to keep me. At around 1pm I was still only 6cm so they started pitocin. I stalled at 6cm for over 6 hours before I had more progress. At 7pm my water broke and I started dilating further....slowly. At midnight I was 8cm and 80%. All of a sudden my epidural stopped working on the left side of my body and I could feel everything. The anesthesiologist tried everything. They pulled out the catheter a little bit, had me lay on my side, and gave me a bunch of meds through the epidural. My right side was completely numb but I had no pain relief at all on my left. At 12:30 I got checked again and I was 9 1/2 cm. I was breathing through the one sided contractions and started having a lot of pressure and sharp pain (pain only on the left of course). At 1am I was complete and started pushing at 1:30. After pushing for almost an hour and a half she was born at 2:51.

She had a little trouble when she first came out with her breathing. She went to the special care nursery and was on oxygen for about three hours. I went over to try to feed her and they took her off the oxygen to eat. She kept her oxygen up and ate really well. All her labs came back normal and she wasn't grunting or retracting anymore so they let me take her back to my room with me. Since then she has been perfect!

Breastfeeding is going really well. She is latching on right away. She stops a lot and has to be coaxed into sucking again, but is doing very well. Of course she is gorgeous and absolutely perfect! We're hanging out in the hospital until Wednesday morning.

I think I got everyone up to speed! Love you all!

PS. I'll post a pic in just a sec!