It all started early Christmas Eve day. I woke up around 3 A.M. to the worst back pain ever. I started to notice that every time my back hurt my stomach would tighten up, and this made me nervous because this is what people told me a contraction would feel like. After about an hour of going through this pain and not being able to fall back asleep I started to keep track of how far apart they were...and they were every 5 minutes. I wanted so badly to go to the hospital, but was so afraid that they'd just send me home. Finally around 5 I called my mom and she talked me into going to the hospital. I quickly got in the shower, got ready and Dallas and I met my mom at Davis Hospital. When we got all settled in the nurse came in to check me and I was dilated to a 1 and about 60% thinned. She then started me on pitocin and the doctor came in around 10:30. When he checked me I hadn't progressed at all...he told me to give it a couple more hours then they would check again. In the meantime the nurse put me on the maximum of the pitocin they can give a patient...and it was probably the worst experience ever because they couldn't give me an epidural because I wasn't dilated enough. The next couple hours went by and still nothing...so the next nurse (Christie) came in to give me the bad news. They decided that they would take me off the pitocin and see how my contractions were. Once I got off the pitocin my contractions were very far apart and not so bad...so they sent me home with some pain medicine. However, we decided that I'd come back after Christmas and they'd give me this thing called cervidil to help me progress better.
So, sure enough we went back on Sunday around 7 P.M. and nurse Christie got me started on the cervidil. Now things started moving just a little faster than we anticipated. The cervidil is supposed to take 12 hours to completely work, but it started working on me within 2 hours. By 9:00 I was dilated to a 2, completely thinned, and she had dropped. I was in so much pain and my body was progress just fine so I was able to get an epidural. I can't even express how thankful I am for the epidural. Once I got that I felt fantastic and could handle anything. Well by 2:30 A.M. I was completely dilated and the nurse had me start pushing while we were waiting for the doctor. It's so crazy because in that moment that I was told to push a million of emotions started to run through me...I couldn't believe it was time. The doctor came in around 3:00 and I pushed several times and then she was here.
It was a little scary because she swallowed some of her poop...so the respiratory therapist had to be called up, she started out coming the right way, but at the last minute she flipped and came out face up which caused me to have to get an episiotomy. Even though we had a couple scary moments she came out perfectly healthy and happy. I just can't get over how beautiful and perfect she is. We love her so much and couldn't be more happier that we get to be her parents.
Here are some pictures of the whole experience (there are a lot..so it's kind of an overload, but so worth it):
*The false alarm*
*Delivery day*
*Once she was here everyone immediately fell in love*
*The next day baby Avrey had lots of visitors*
*Luckly for us we got to leave the next morning*
