Introducing Our Little Angel Baby....

Well the last several weeks have been very full at the Head house.  With all our other babies they've been born at 38 and 39 weeks so as we inched closer to those weeks of this pregnancy I had all sorts of lists going of things to try and accomplish or get done before she made her grand entrance!  We began checking off lots of my to do list and yet nothing was really happening...I would have contractions fairly close together (like every 8-12 minutes) for several hours and start thinking "oh man, here we go..." only for the contractions to completely die off.  Well that happened several different nights (Adam would lay out his clothes, I'd check my bag, then check the bag of things for all the boys to make sure everything was there for when the grandparents had them), I would have little rounds of contractions but nothing to really speak of, I must say it's hard to walk around feeling like a ticking time bomb...but what else do you do?

Well on Thursday evening we decided we'd go for a walk across the new bridge to see if we could get things moving, the boys loved riding their bikes and I must say the scenery was terrific, but NOTHING happened!  My body must have instinctively known something was gonna happen because I was like a freak on Thursday night (organizing, doing laundry, filing paper work, cleaning, etc).  Finally Adam said we should go to sleep, so we did, I was having NO contractions, not even any Braxton Hicks so I didn't figure anything was gonna happen...boy was I wrong!

At 3:00am I woke up having contractions regularly but not very strong ones.  I laid there about an hour trying to decide what to do, then thought I'd get up and take a shower and get ready...well when I stood up...and GUSH...there went my water (which has always broken in the hospital every other time).  I  yelled to Adam, "grab a towel" so he jumped out of bed, grabbed the towel and immediately started calling his parents who were on call to come be with the boys whenever things got going.  They got here and we left for the hospital, we arrived at about 5:00 and quickly checked in, they told me  I was only at 3 cm (which with all the others I'd gone in at 6 or 7 cm, so this was much different from the very beginning--it should've been an indication of how things would go....)  I began to be uncomfortable, but it was not unbearable... I told them I wanted my epidural as quickly as possible, and I DID get it, and there was some relief right there at the very beginnng....but my labor went from 3 to 5 in about 35 minutes, then it went from 5-8 in another half hour, then within minutes I was complete and in a TON of pain.  Apparently my labor had progressed to quickly for the epidural to catch up and she was "on a nerve root" and it wasn't allowing the pain killer to touch it....therefore we got, and will pay for, an epidural that unfortunately didn't work.  To say it was "intense" might be an understatement, I was in a lot of pain, and on top of everything, I was Group B strep positive so I needed 2 doses of antibiotics before she was born, so they were hoping I could hold off for another hour and a half...that did NOT happen!  Though she'd been slow to get started, when she decided she was "ready" she made a quick and deliberate delivery!  My doctor wasn't able to get there in time, the Charge Nurse was the one who delivered her....oh my goodness, such relief!

And I was doubly relieved, because they said "its a girl!" and I do have to say I did start crying....I think somewhere in my mind I wasn't quite positive she was a girl...honestly, I did pack the little day gown that I'd brought all the boys home in, just in case, but we certainly didn't need it!  Oh how precious she is, we just can't get enough of her.  So far she's super easy, and VERY QUIET which is a welcome relief for sure, if you've been around my family at all, my 3 boys can be very loud!  The boys are super excited for Ava Jane to be here; they were quite giddy the first time they met her up in the hospital!  I think this next leg of our parenting journey is going to be really fun, its already been real sweet and she's only been here 3 days!!  Adam and I spent some of our two days in the hospital just thanking and praising God for all the MANY answers to prayers, the perfect provision He's made for us to be here (in Little Rock) and getting to have a baby girl (who is healthy and strong)...we are completely humbled by His gracious gifts and we stand amazed at his goodness to us!

 

 

Meeting Poppy and Grammy as well as her 3 Big Brothers! (Lawson was super excited, Emerson looks a little apprehensive about all of it!)

All my boys...Oh how I love them!!