Avery and Memaw

We have had a busy past few weeks visitng family and with family visiting us. Week before last we spent Wed. through Friday in Dallas staying with my parents since Scott had a little break from school. Then Scott's mom rode back to Edmond with us to stay for a week. She had originally planned to do this because I was going to have to go back to work for a few days before school was out. But it turned out that I got enough donated days that I didn't have to! Yay! So Jan, Avery, and I just had a good time running around
shopping and spending time together. Scott even got to hang out
a little bit since he was stil on break and only worked a few days
at Dental Depot. We also got to enjoy some of Memaw's yummy
cooking. We are looking forward to next week as Scott's sister and
her husband are coming to visit.
On a sidenote- Avery was 8 weeks on Friday. So I guess we have
to start counting in months now. It seems like she is already
growing up so fast! She smiles all the time now and is doing new
things every day. Best of all she is sleeping from about 10 or 11 at
night until 5 or 5:30 in the morning! We'll probably be in for it
when we have our next child!

Say cheese!

This weekend we had some portraits done of Avery and our family. Luckily, Avery was alert and content right up until the very end. Not that we have anything to compare her to, but she really is a good baby. For the most part, she only cries when she's hungry or really tired and she lets us tote her around everywhere. I go somewhere every day with her, whether it's to Target, Wal Mart, a playgroup at church, etc. I'm just not the type that can sit at home 24/7. One of her first words might very well be "go". This past week she had her one month check-up

and she weighed 10 lbs 11 oz. She has started smiling in response to us, which is so much fun.
We were even able to get her to smile in a few of the portraits. For about a week now she has been sleeping for a 4 hour stretch at night and then 3 hours after that, which is a nice change. Hopefully that 4 hours will just gradually increase over the next few weeks/months. By the way, she is already growing new hair in her bald spots. . . and yes, it is still really dark!

One month old

Avery was one month old this past Friday. I took the pictures this afternoon (Sunday) though, right before we went on a "family" walk with her anhd Josie . I know Avery is still really little all things considered, but i can't believe that she is already a month old! Tuesday is her one month well-baby check, so we will see just how much she has grown. Last night she slept in her crib for the first time and did really well. It was nice not to hear every little noise she made, although I did miss hearing her little sighs and contented breathing. You can't tell from these pictures with the bow on, but she has lost quite a bit of her hair in the front, especially on her left side . She kind of has a little mohawk patch right on top. Scott and I were joking that it looks like a receding hairline or male pattern baldness. With all the hair she has though, I'm sure the bare spots will just fill in with new hair eventually. It will definately be interesting to see her grow and change over the coming months. . . .

Easter weekend

This is a week late and I already wrote about it, but I wanted to post some pics from Easter weekend in Dallas. We were able to see lots of family and introduce them all to Avery. She continues to eat and sleep a lot, and is still sleeping in 3 and 3 1/2 hours stretches on most nights. We have found that she likes baths, taking walks in her stroller, riding in the car, looking and listening to her mobile, and being bounced in her infant seat. This week she will get to have her first real bath since the last little part of her cord fell off yesterday.

Avery's early weeks

I know that some of you have been waiting for more pics, and I am finally getting around to it. As those of you with kids know, the past 2 1/2 weeks have been like a time warp. In some ways they have flown by, but in other ways it seems like an eternity since Avery was born. She is doing really well- basically just eating, sleeping, pooping, and making lots of noises. A few of the noises we have nicknamed are the dolphin, the grackel, the squeaky door, and for awhile she said "hep" when she nursed. Last Tues at her Dr. appointment she had gained almost a pound over her birthweight which put her at 8 lbs. 12 oz. She is a growing girl! Right now she is snoozing away and making soft little coos and sighs every once in a while. This past weekend she took her first trip to Dallas for Easter. We got to introduce her to her 3 living great-grandparents, 2 great aunts and a great uncle, most of her regular aunts and uncles, and her 3 cousins who had lots of fun holding her. As for Scott and I we are managing to stay relatively rested since she sleeps about 3 to 3 1/2 hours at a time at night and we're resuming more and more of our "regular" activities every day. We will try to keep the pics and updates coming as best we can!

Avery's debut!

Just as Scott promised, here's the story of Avery's birth. . .

Thursday afternoon I went to the Dr. and we did a non-stress test to make sure Avery was still doing OK since she was already a few days late. Although she had been active some that day, she decided not to move hardly at all during the test, and the Dr. was not pleased with that. So he sent us over to radiology to do a biophysical profile, which is basically an ultrasound that looks at fetal well-being. There were a few things that didn't look quite as good as they should, so the Dr. sent us over to labor and delivery and said he would call us and we would decide what to do. On a sidenote, my Dr. left for Denver right after our appointment, so we were now being taken care of by another Dr. in the group. Dr. Melendez decided to go ahead and admit me and start the induction process. I had mild contractions all night and then my water broke on its own at 5:00 am. By 9:00 I was ready to push! I pushed for about 1 1/2 hrs but Avery was getting stuck and I was exhausted, so the Dr. let me rest for about an hour. We started pushing again at noon and finally, with the help of forceps, she was born at 1:22 pm. I was so relieved and overjoyed that she had finally arrived! She weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and was 20 3/4 inches long. She had a conehead and some marks from the forceps, but all that is gone now and she looks beautiful! Since she got stuck and the birth was so traumatic for my body, the Dr. suggested planned C-sections from now on. . . but we will worry about that later. For now we are just enjoying our sweet, beautiful daughter! We can't wait for you all to meet her!

Light at the end of the tunnel!

Today we went for what we hoped might be our last Dr. appointment. However, there is a chance that we might have to go one more time. Our Dr. called to try and schedule me to be induced on Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday of next week, but they already had 4 people on standby for each of those days! So, that's kind of the bad news, but the good news is that they were able to schedule us for Monday, April 3rd. So at least we have a date now, even though it's a little later than I had hoped. I guess this will give Avery a good chance of still being in charge of her own birthday. If she's still hanging in there next Thursday, we will go for a non-stress test where they hook me up to the fetal monitor to make sure that she is still donig OK. In the meantime, we will try to go about our normal activities and hope that nature takes its course!

The final countdown

We are now down to only 2 weeks left in this journey called pregnancy. Could be a little sooner, or could be a little longer (ugh!), but either way, Avery will be making her debut soon! We are getting really excited to see her and hold her. Like I told Scott last night, it's kind of like knowing Christmas is coming and having a really big present to open!

Spring break officially started last night, so i am looking forward to a week of relaxing and finising up some final preparations before Avery comes. Unfortunately, Scott isn't gong to get to relax as much as I am on his "spring break". He is working several days at the Dental Depot and will also be spending a day up at school working on his research. He's got a test, a project, and a presentation coming up in the next 2 weeks, so he's busier than ever! He's praying that Avery will come before her due date so that maybe he can get out of doing some of those things!

Well, I am off to do shopping at BabiesRUs!

As you can see from the pics, we are finally finished with Avery's room! As I look at it now I am wishing we had a "before" photo of when it was our office-- quite a transformation! As you can also see, my belly is ever-expanding. For anyone who cares to know, my belly button still is not an "outty", but is just about flat. Tomorrow I go to the doctor for the first of my weekly "checks", so we are excited to see if I am making any progress toward D-Day. Scott and I both are looking forward to Spring Break not next week, but the next. Scott is going to work some at Dental Depot, but we decided that we should plan some last minute fun things if i feel up to it. Hopefully that will also help keep my mind off of thoughts like "When is this baby going to come out?!"

Avery has a bed!

Just a quick little note to say that we now have a fully-assembled crib for our daughter! Yay! The parts were sitting on the doorstep when I got home yesterday and we put it together last night. So now all we have left to do on the nursery is hang things on the walls. We'll try to remember to take some pictures and include them with a new (and scary!) belly pic next week.

Icy weekend

Well, we are feeling better this week-- alhtough Scott is trying hard not to get my cold now. so far the enormous amounts of fluid and Vitamin C appear to be working for him. We had a nice weekend despite the bad weather and I got a lot of stuff taken care of off the "To do Before Avery comes" list. My weekend was really nice since I had both Friday and today off-- like a mini-vacation. Scott and I even braved the icy weather Saturday night to attend the wedding of one of his dental school classmates. It was a lot of fun to visit with people from dental school and to enjoy a "night on the town" at the Petrolem Club. We keep saying that in the next couple of weeks we have to use of movie gift card and go to Hornets basketball game too. Avery probably weighs close to 6 lbs now and is 20+ inches long. I go back to the doctor next week and after that I start going every week to get checked. It will definately be interesting to see how things unfold over the next few weeks!

"Ralph" and "Sniffles"

These are mine and Scott's new nicknames as we try to recover from food poisoning/stomach virus (Scott) and a cold (me). We both got sick over the weekend, which of course happened to be the weekend that both our parents were in town becasue we had our baby shower at church. The shower was wonderful though and we got tons of stuff for Avery. Now that I'm in my 35th week, she should be around 5 1/2 pounds and maybe 20 inches long or so. Things are getting crowded in there! It seems like everthing is becomming more challenging now and people are looking at me with pity. I can't imagine what they'll be thinking in another few weeks! Oh well, I'm just trying to remember and look forward to the end result!

Workout woes

OK, so the pictures from the last post are of me at 32 weeks, for the record. We accidentally left out that little detail. I have been pretty religious about continuing my workouts during this pregnancy, whether it was jogging in the beginning or walking like I do now. But I have to admit that it is starting to get really hard now. I took Josie (our lab) for a walk today and just about died trying to make it up the hill in our neighborhood. I was huffing and puffing and my muscles were aching like I had just run a couple miles! Maybe I'll stick to the nice, flat treadmill or change my route from now on :)
The latest update on the crib is that we received the second one last Wed and it was damaged too! But since the only thing that was scratched up was two of the posts, we decided to keep the crib and just order replacement parts from the manufacturer. The parts should get here sometime in the next couple of weeks. We're going to really appreciate that crib once we get it all put together!

Furniture Fiasco

Last Monday when we were out registering at Babies R Us, UPS delivered 2 of the 3 pieces of furniture we ordered for the nursery. The crib box was in bad shape and sure enough, when we opened it, 2 of the legs were really scratched up. Turns out it was going to be faster to return it to the store and order a new one online rather than have UPS pick it up again. So one of our church friends (Thank you Craig!) helped us get it to the store in his truck Tues night. So now we are back to waiting. Agghh-- How frustrating! But we did get the 3rd piece of furniture and got it all put together. It's finally starting to look like a baby's room! The new crib is supposed to come this week or next.
As far as an update on Avery, there's not much to tell. She probably weighs close to 4 lbs now and is almost 19 inches long. I went to the doctor last Thurs and everything was great. Now I have to start going every 2 weeks.
As for the rest of our world, it's mostly working, church or church activities, and market research for Scott's future practice. We're usually able to squeeze in a weekly trip to Braums for ice cream too. But then if you know us well, that's not anything unusual :)

10 week countdown

I am starting my 31st week of pregnancy now and Avery should be about 3.5 lbs and 18 inches long. After my doctor's appointment this thursday, I will start going every two weeks. Last week we started our birthing classes. A lot of the info we already knew, but we did learn a few things. I really enjoyed the part where we did breathing exercises becasue the husband had to massage the wife's back and legs while she breathed. Too bad we're only supposed to do breathing exercises for 2 more weeks!
We had a nice, relaxing weekend with a quick visit from Scott's Dad on Saturday. He went to see Scott at Dental Depot and then took us out to lunch and headed back to get Jan in Coppell. Scott and I both have the day off tomorrow, so we're looking forward to that. We are going to go register for baby stuff in the morning and then just enjoy the rest of the day together. We've really got to start taking advantage of these last few weeks of freedom and "alone-time", although it's sometimes difficult when you've been looking forward to having a baby for so long!

Beginning Week 30

Now that you've seen the updated pics, I've got the update on Avery for this week, which is week 30 of my pregnancy. According to my "Week by Week" book, she should weigh about 3 pounds now and be about 17 inches long (about 10.8 inches from head to bottom). Just like the book says, now that my uterus takes up most of my abdomen, I am starting the feel the discomfort of pregnancy-- thankfully just a little. But really, this pregnancy has been fairly uneventful and i have felt pretty good-- so i can't complain. Even Scott said that he thought I would feel much worse than i have. In one way it's hard to believe that I've still got 11 weeks to go, but in another way i can't believe that I will be a mommy soon! I am starting to really look forward to the moment when I see her for the first time and finally get to hold her in my arms.

Tests and more tests

Today we went to the doctor for a checkup and to do glucose testing and another ultrasound. The main purpose of the ultrasound was to check the placenta to see if it was still low. The sonographer said it has moved up out the way enough-- so no placenta previa--Yay! She did have touble getting a good look at Avery's feet however, and she was a little concerned that one foot might be turned in quite a bit and/or be a clubfoot. Dr. Rahhal gave us the option of going to a specialist to have another ultrasound, but I don't think we will since there isn't anything they can do about it before she's born anyway. I'm not too worried considering that my feet were turned in and I had casts on them as an infant-- they look and function normally now! Avery measured right on track this time at 27 1/2 weeks and they estimated her weight at 2.7 pounds. Everything else looks great and the glucose test wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

We are enjoying a relaxing day at home, although we probably should be putting away the Christmas decorations and cleaning house. I guess that will be on the agenda for tomorrow along with buying the nursery furniture, if we can squeeze it all in! Tonight we'll be watching OU in the Holiday Bowl. Go Sooners!

Week 26

This is the last week of my second trimester. Scott and I were talking last night about how it seems like it went by really fast. With the holidays fast approaching and all we have left to do, I have a feeling that these last 3 months are going to go by really fast too- at least until i get really uncomfortable! Avery now should weigh close to 2 pounds and is just over 9 inches from head to bottom. She is starting to put on some weight now and is filling out a little bit. No new big developments though-- she's just growing. Our next big project is to decide on and buy nursery furniture. Scott helped me narrow it down a little, but I am having trouble making a final decision. In some ways i wish there weren't so many choices -- it would make deciding a whole lot easier! Avery must know that i am talking about her because she is moving around like crazy and Scott just now saw my stomach move for the first time. Until next time . . .

Baby gets a name!

Some of you already know, but for those who don't, we have decided to name our daughter Avery Brynn. It's not after anyone, we just liked it! Over Thanksgiving we got to see her again on ultrasound at the Cooper Clinic (my Mom's work) and boy was she active! I feel her move a lot but I guess I don't feel everthing. My parents really enjoyed being there since they didn't get to have ultrasounds with me and Amy. We came home from Dallas with a carload of stuff for Avery-- a bassinet, clothes, blankets, etc that my grandparents and our parents gave us. It was like having a mini baby shower. I added to the load becasue I bought most of the nursery bedding and also a "going home" outfit for her. I bought the quilt and pillow sham on ebay, so I'm now waiting for that to arrive. I had a doctor's appointment this past Wed. and everything is going well. At my next appointment we will do another ultrasound to see if the placenta has risen up out of the way and I also have to do the glucose test- yuck! According to my book, Avery now weighs about 1.2 pounds and is about 8.5 inches from head to bottom. She is busy filling out and developing her organs and senses. We signed up for childbirth and baby care classes starting in January so it will be a busy winter! Check next week for a picture of my growing tummy and an update on Avery.

One pound wonder

Our little girl now weighs close to 1 pound and is about 8 inches long from head to bottom. Her body is getting plumper, but she is still wrinkled to allow for more growth. She is looking more like an infant at the time of birth. I am feeling good and just enjoying her kicks, punches, twists and turns. She seems to get stronger every day and my tummy now visibly moves more often when she moves. We are looking forward to the short work week and to spending time with family over the Thanksgiving holidays. We are really anxious to do the ultrasound Wednesday and to see her again on the screen. I'm sure we'll get a bunch more pictures to show off along with the ones we already have. We'll be looking forward to seeing everyone-- Happy Holidays!