Happy Birthday Avery!

I've decided to copy my sister in law Heather. So, in honor of Avery's birthday, here is the story of her birth:

The week before she was born, there were a lot of thunderstorms. Multiple storms rolled through everyday. My body seems to be very sensitive to pressure changes, it causes a lot of contractions. So, every time the storms would start brewing, my contractions would start as well. After several days of this, I started to get really sick of it. It's so tiring to be in labor for days on end. I knew that these weren't Braxton contractions. They were pretty uncomfortable and I just felt blah. She wasn't due for another month, but I could tell that I wasn't going to last much longer. All of my kids have been born a month early. So, I decided to encourage/speed labor up. I had Ryan take me to the parking lot of Granger High School. They have a lot of big bumps and dips there. (We did this with Cameron as well, and it worked then. We knew that it would work again.) Ryan drove really slowly through the dips so that the car would rock and then took the bumps really hard. We did this for about 30 minutes. The contractions started getting stronger and coming closer together. We went over to his parents house because they were close. I walked around for about another 30 minutes and hoofed it on the treadmill for a while. Contractions were very regular and I had Ryan start to time them. When they got to be about 7 minutes apart, we decided to head on over to Cottonwood Hospital. We got there at around 9:00 p.m. The nurses were very skeptical that I was really in labor. They put me in a triage room to monitor me. When they checked me, I was at a 4. They checked an hour later and I was at a 5. They checked another hour later and I was at a 6+ and they finally decided to admit me. This was at 11:30 p.m. My doctor's office doctor who was on call (does that make sense) came in after I was settled into the room. He was really annoyed that the nurse hadn't tried to stop labor because I was early. He was kind of a goofy guy and while reading my chart said, "Wow! It says here that you don't want any pain medication. That's really unusual. Are you sure that you want to do that?" I told him I was fine, I had done it before. I knew what to expect and I wasn't worried. He said fine, he wasn't going to do anything to help labor along and he was going to go take a nap. I decided to try and get things really going. I started walking the halls, hoping to speed things up. The contractions were still coming, but not as strong or as close together as they had been. Hour after hour passed. The nurses checked every couple of hours and found that I had stalled at a 6+. I was starting to feel a little frustrated. My first two labors had been really fast. I thought that I hadn't done a good thing encouraging it this time around. Maybe I had pushed my luck. My doctor finally came on at around 8:30 a.m. He got to my room at around 9:00 and said, "This is stupid. Why haven't they been helping you? You're obviously in labor and ready. If I sent you home, you would just be back here in a couple of hours. Let's just break your water, give you some Pitocin and get this over with." The "P" word made me very nervous. I had heard how bad Pitocin induced labors can be. I didn't tell my doctor that though because I can't stand not maintaining my dignity. My doctor doctor broke my water and told me he would be around. I think he thought it would take at least a few more hours. After he left and the nurse was getting the Pitocin ready, I started to panic and cry a little. I didn't want to have such horrible labor because of the medicine that I felt tempted to get an epidural. She told me not to worry. Even Pitocin induced labors could be managed without pain medication. I sucked it up and braced myself for what I thought was going to be a horrible labor. I shouldn't have worried. The Pitocin never really had a chance to kick in. Breaking my water was enough because about 2 minutes after the nurse left the room, I started contracting hard and fast. She saw this on the monitor at the nurse's station and came back right away. She immediately started setting things up for delivery and called my doctor to tell him to get his butt back. He was there fast and then things kind of turned into a blur. I remember them breaking down the bed and telling me to hold on. I think that I did a good job waiting. As far as my memory goes, I maintained control. I was just getting ready to push and then the phone rang. Ryan answered it and said, "I'll have to call you later." He hung up the phone (it was my dad calling to check how things were going) and started counting. I pushed once and her head came out. One more time and her body was delivered. That was it. Less than an hour after my water was broken, she was born. Avery is the only child that we have found out the sex of before they were born. Even though we knew she was a girl, it was still an amazing moment. We both immediately started crying. Doesn't everybody? Now, here we are 4 years later and I can hardly believe it. She has been such a blessing and an amazing addition to our family. I'm so thankful that she's healthy and continues to grow and learn every day. We're so happy to have her in our life. Happy Birthday Baby Girl!