Labor of love

Here is a little update of how the events transpired from Friday evening the 20th, till Saturday the 21st at 6:33 am.

After our doctor visit Friday morning, we both were hoping Avery (still known then as Cheeto but not now) would be born at least by Monday. However, we weren’t sure that would happen.

Around 9 p.m., as I was full of nervous energy, I went downstairs to relieve some stress by playing pop-a-shot basketball for 30 minutes or so. After coming back upstairs I looked at Teresa and said, “Look at your belly. Cheeto has dropped!” She didn’t believe me until she looked in the mirror. She then said, “That is good but it still could be a few days.”

At about 10:20 or so, Teresa said she was having a little back pain, and we began discussing heading to bed. But about 10 minutes later, Teresa’s back pain returned. Remembering something from the childbirth class (yes, I paid attention in the class), I told Teresa we should stay up for a little while because those could be labor pains. These pains continued every 10 minutes or so for about 45 minutes. At 11:15 or so, the pains moved more to the front and were all of a sudden 5 minutes apart. I was convinced this was it, but Teresa wasn’t. I told Teresa I was calling the doctor now. She slowly agreed.

At 11:59 p.m. (very significant time to us as this was still the due date), we got in the car and left for the hospital. I asked Teresa if she would like the radio on, and she said she would like to listen to KLOVE (our favorite Christian radio station). I turned it on and for those of you know how big a fan we are of Steven Curtis Chapman, you can image how amazing it was to hear our favorite SCC song “Dive” as the radio came on. We took this as a sign that we were about to dive into parenthood!

We arrived at the hospital, and I was sure we were just a few hours away from being parents. Teresa still wasn’t so sure until the triage nurse came in the room and said, “You are dilated to 6 cm. You aren’t going anywhere.”

Each of our parents and Teresa’s sister arrived shortly after 1 a.m. Thus, they had about a 5 1/2 hour wait in the waiting room with only two updates from me as I was trying my best to keep from flipping out and doing the best I could to soothe Teresa.

Teresa was absolutely great! One of her goals during childbirth was to go as long as possible without any drugs. She received a small vile of some pain medication around 1 a.m. just to take the edge off of the contractions. She then waited until 3 a.m. and 9 cm dilated to ask for an epidural. I was ever so grateful she asked for it as it was just pure agony for me to watch her go through those contractions and not be able to do anything but rub her back. I think it helped me more than it helped her.

At 4:50 a.m., Teresa’s labor nurse said it was time to start pushing. Teresa pushed for about 20 minutes but was exhausted. The nurse allowed Teresa to rest and take about a 30-minute nap (this is when the epidural was really handy). At this point Teresa had been up for 24 straight hours, worked a full work day and had a stressful doctor’s appointment. I wasn’t sure she had anything left to push. But then, a second nurse came in (I called her the enforcer). She began giving Teresa very short and precise instructions on her pushing. She was very nice and courteous but had a “you need to stop doing what you want to do and pay attention and do what I tell you” tone and it was just what she needed. When this nurse walked in, she asked what Teresa was having (boy or girl). Teresa said we don’t know and the nurse responded, “Well what are we waiting for? Let’s get the baby out and find out what it is!”

At 6:33 a.m., Cheeto emerged, and we were waiting and waiting and waiting to find out what it was. We think the doctor forgot we didn’t know. After about 10 or 15 seconds (that felt like 2 hours), the “enforcer” nurse said what we wanted to say…”WELL DOCTOR, WHAT IS IT?!” The doctor said it is a girl, and we couldn’t believe it. How amazing! God has blessed us with a beautiful girl. I took one look at her and said, “I thought babies were supposed to be ugly when they were just born. She is beautiful!” For the record, the doctor and nurses agreed that she was indeed a very beautiful baby. Now that I think about it, how could she not be? Look at her gene pool.

Well as you can tell, we are very excited to have Avery Joy in our lives and look forward to having many more stories for you over the coming years.

More pictures will be posted soon.