Birthday Girl

Our sweet little Avery turned four. I always tell her she is growing to fast and I am going to put a brick on her head so she can't grow anymore. She then responds, "But I am going to eat my food and grow big to get married like you mom!"

 Avery was born on August 21st at 9:39am. She came exactly two weeks early on the exact day I wanted her to come. Madisen was born the the 21st of April, so I thought it would be neat to have both girls born in 'A' months, and on the 21st day. And I got my wish!  

Avery's birthday story...

Around 5pm the night before Avery was born, I started itching, which wasn't unusual because I had many moments through the last few weeks that I would itch really bad, due to the ICP disease (Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy) I had. But as the night went on, the itching got worse and worse. I had red marks and botches all over my body. So at midnight we decided to go in and make sure everything was ok with our baby girl. They decided to keep me and monitor the baby. 

After a few hours, around 2am, they decided to go ahead and induce me so they put a tablet up me to get the dilating process started. Usually it takes several tablets and several hours to even start dilating but I dilated right away but was still itching so bad. I remembered when I had Madisen that as soon as they broke my water, the itching completely stopped. Which was great! So I asked if they could break my water, but boy, that was a bad idea! I don't know what was worse the itching or the immediate contractions! They were so intense that I was doubled over in pain. My back and stomach hurt so bad. I wished I would have asked for the epidural before asking the doctor to break my water.

They gave me something in the mean time, but all it did was make me super drowsy to the point where I was mumbling and I couldn't keep my eyes focused on anything still feeling the pain of the the contractions. (I'm a baby...I don't know how women did it without an epidural!?)

I had to wait 4 hours before the lady finally showed up to give me an epidural. And she was the rudest, meanest lady I have ever met. Ryan and I joked later(much later) that she must have been in the military for several years before becoming an anesthesiologist! 

After the epidural kicked in, which took another hour or so,I finally drifted off to sleep at 7am. 

A nurse came in to check on me and I remember looking at the clock and it read 9:30. I was still pretty out of it, but she wanted to see how much I had dilated. As she did, she gave this wide-eyed look of shock and quickly said, "this baby's head is almost out!"

 Several nurses came running in the room and started quickly putting things together to get me ready to push.

Several minutes passed and doctor came in and threw on some gloves and looked at me, came over and said, "Give me one good push."

I was still half out of it and really wasn't sure what was happening. I coughed and said, "Already?" 

And that's all it took. The next thing I knew our baby was out and ready to take on the world! 

However when they handed me Avery she was wrapped in a blue blanket. I wouldn't have notice the color of the blanket, except a nurse, said, "It's a boy! How cute!" I looked up in shock and confusion as we had been expecting a girl, so my face probably looked like a deer caught in head-lights! Then Dr. Carlson said, "No, no it's a girl alright!" 

The nurse that had said that said, "Oh, I am sorry I just saw the blue blanket and assumed it was a boy."

From the momemt the nurse checked me till Avery made her way out it had only been 9 minutes! Everything happened so fast, it was nice not feeling any pain, but I was kind of sad that I didn't get to experience the "pushing" part. I know weird huh? 

Happy Birthday Avery!!!!

We are so glad you came to our family!
We love you.

I had to get a few pictures of her before church yesterday.

I made her a rainbow cake and had some friends and the missionaries over. We opened presents before church and did our traditional breakfast in bed.