Avery's Birth Story

Update before bed....Avery is here! She's beautiful and a wonderful baby! She is 6lbs 13oz and 19 inches long. She's already nursing like a champ and wouldn't take her eyes off her big brother. We are so smitten!

We left off yesterday right after I had the epidural and I was a happy camper! About 30 minutes later, things changed! The side effects of the epidural kicked in and it quickly became evident that I should have not had the epidural. I vomited uncontrollably, shook like I was having a seizure and then my body went weak and numb. I couldn't even open my eyes. My blood pressure dropped so I spent the next 3 hours sniffing alcohol swabs. Unfortunately, at this time, I was begging for a c-section but the doctors thought I should stick it out. At 3am, I had manged to fall asleep and the doctors and nurses ran in, and wheeled me to the OR while telling me Avery's heart rate was no longer strong since my blood pressure was so low.

When we got to the OR, the plan was to give me a spinal then let Daniel come in. The doctors put a mask on my face and told me to count backwards from 10. I made it to 0 and was still wide awake. Unfortunately, my epidural wasn't spaced very well (I still felt most contractions mildly after I'd gotten it) so they couldn't use it to give me a spinal. The decision was made to put me all the way under. Avery was delivered and was perfect from the start. Because I had a fever, she was taken to the newborn nursery and given an IV that she'll have for 2 days for antibiotics.

This is where things took a turn for me. The doctors couldn't get me to stop bleeding. Daniel was notified and made the decision to do a hysterectomy if they couldn't get me to stop bleeding as I was quickly bleeding out. Thankfully, they stopped the bleeding just in time to land me in the ICU but not need a hysterectomy (which at this point, I wouldn't have cared that much because we are DONE with 2 kids after 2 traumatic births!) I woke up in the ICU with an IV in both hands, a central line in my neck and a drainage bulb coming out of my c-section wound. The right hand (maternity unit) and the left hand (ICU) did a poor job of communicating and both thought the other had given me pain meds. WRONG! At noon, they finally rectified this with some demerol in my arm as I was wheeled out of the ICU to see my baby girl!

The postpartum nurses felt so bad for me that they gave me a nice suite and have been WONDERFUL ever since! They've been on top of pain meds and complete dolls to Avery. I'm already up and walking a bit and can now get myself out of bed alone which is way sooner than I did with Parker so hopefully I'll recover faster!

Speaking of Parker, he came to visit today and it went 100x better than I thought it would! He LOVED his sister and wanted to hold her constantly. He called her "baby" and petted her head so softly. I was a proud mama!

Avery took to nursing like a champ! We are just through the moon with her! Daniel keeps saying "she's so easy!" "She doesn't cry!" All that will change soon but we're savoring these quiet, sweet moments! Daniel changed her diaper today and we caught it on tape. I'm SOOO glad we did. Parker watched intently as she pooped while daddy was wiping her. haha. His facial expression was worth a million bucks!

We got a few family photos of the kids in their matching outfits. So precious! My mom is going to have to bring Avery different clothes because I packed her all long sleeve cotton items but her IV in her forearm makes it so she can't wear anything but short sleeve outfits or onesies. She doesn't have bow ready hair but that's why I came prepared with headbands too which was precious! Daddy wasn't super thrilled that I put a bow bigger than her head on it but he'll get over it!

Sorry for the long and detailed post but since this is "Avery's baby book" once I have the blog printed, I wanted to make sure to document everything I could remember. PLUS.... PICTURES! We haven't taken many but here are a few!

Going to the hospital

Avery's 1st picture

Happy Big Brother reaching out to hold "his baby"

Our family of 4!!!