A baby story

Ava Brooke McGinn

June 28

4:32pm

8 pounds  11 ounces

21 inches

Wow, time does fly!  Ava has been here for three weeks now.  I've been meaning to blog about it... but there's always something baby-related that needs to be done!  So better late than never, here's the story of how Ava arrived:

Sunday, June 27:  Awoke at 5am with contractions.  Mild, nothing major.  Got up and started doing some last minute house cleaning.  Went to church at 9:30 and the contractions were pretty regular but still not very painful. Went to the hospital around noon.  I was dilated 2-3 cm, same as the week before.  They told me to go home and rest and return if the contractions got worse, otherwise to go to my OB appointment at 2:30pm on Monday.  I was bummed!  Contractions continued throughout the day - got really bad around 9pm.  I was contracting every 10 minutes, each one lasting about 50 seconds.  The pain was getting intense!  At around 3am I couldn't take it anymore.  There was no way I could endure this until my appointment at 2:30.  So back to the hospital we went.  This time I was dilated to 5cm.  Yeah!  I got to stay.  In went my IV and epidural (piece of cake).  My OB came in around 10:30am to break my water.  Contractions continued about every 2 minutes until 3:30pm when it was time to start pushing.  Unfortunately, I pushed for 2 hours.  After about one hour of pushing I started to feel the contractions.  Not sure if they turned down my epidural or what.... but it was painful!  I went into the experience thinking that an epidural = no pain.  Boy was I wrong.  Finally at 4:32pm on June 28 Ava made her grand entrance into the world!  Seeing her chubby cheeks made it all worth it!  We've been snuggling her at home for about 3 weeks now.  Time flies!  Most days are good, all are exhausting.  More blogging to come!