1 Month Check Up

Avery had her 1 month well check at the doctor on Friday. She weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces and is 21 inches long. She is still pretty petite for her age as she is in the 25th and 50th percentile respectively for both height and weight, but she is now gaining weight very quickly. In one week she gained 10 ounces, which is very good considering most babies average between a half ounce to an ounce a day. She is definitely trying to make up for her slow start. The doctor confirmed that Avery does seem to have some pretty bad reflux. Avery has always spit up after pretty much each feeding, but lately Chad and I noticed she seems to be in a lot of pain after she eats. Reflux is very normal in babies as there GI system is very immature and takes a while to develop. The doctor gave her some medicine for the reflux and so far it seems to be helping a bit. Other than the reflux Avery is doing great!!

This was a week of firsts for Avery. She had her first real bath last Monday. Up until that point we were still only giving her sponge baths. She was very calm during her bath, which was a shock considering she hated her sponge baths. Avery also shared her first smile with mommy and daddy on Friday. Unfortunately, I have had a hard time capturing it on camera as I get so excited that I totally forget to grab the camera when she does it.

Thinking about whether or not she likes it

Avery and her mouse friend

1 Month!!

Wow I cannot believe how fast these 4 weeks have gone by and how much our little girl is changing each day. After getting off to a rough start Avery has gained over a pound in the past week and is finally now back above her birth weight. She was 7 pounds 7 ounces at her last weigh in on Thursday. Now that she is eating better we cannot believe what a good baby she is (knock on wood). She eats just about every three hours during the day then stays up for about an hour after her feedings and then she takes a nap. At night she has gone as long as 5 hours between feedings and the other night only woke up once. She is still a little to young to do that consistently, but the extra sleep was greatly appreciated by both Chad and myself. We cannot wait for her to permanently drop one of her nightly feedings so that we only have to get up once in the middle of the night.

Here are some highlights from the month:

* Grandma Carolyn found a dimple on Avery's left cheek when she smiles. Since neither Chad or I have dimples this is just another characteristic Avery shares with her Aunt Kelsy.

* Avery and I went to our first newborn parent group at the hospital. The group meets every Thursday and is just a casual place to meet other new moms and babies.

* Avery loves riding in her car seat. This has allowed us to get out of the house quite a bit. We have visited the Gap, Babies R Us, daddy's work and even went to watch daddy's softball practice.

* Avery is very good at tummy time. She has been able to move her head from side to side since she was a week old and now can hold her head up for a few seconds. She loves playing on her activity mat!!

* Avery and mommy survived daddies first trip away from home...with a lot of help from Grandma Carolyn.

Tummy Time

Trying to convince Grandma Carolyn not to leave

Mommy and Avery all dressed up to go see daddy at work

Playing on her activity mat with daddy

Sleeping on her boppy

Avery's First 3 Weeks

I cannot believe that our little girl will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. The last three weeks have definitely been busy, but each week things seem to get a little easier. We have had some feeding issues so our little peanut has had a hard time gaining weight. Hopefully we have figured things out now and she will start to plump up. We bring her back to the doctor on Monday for a weight check. Now that we are starting to get on a routine I will hopefully be able to update the blog weekly. For now I am just going to post some pictures from the last three weeks.

First Bath

First Trip to the doctor

Daddy feeding Avery

Avery's First Easter

We have no clue where those long legs come from

No more pictures mommy!!!

Avery in her tutu

Avery Grace's Birth Story

Wow I never thought I would get this post done. As you can imagine these past two weeks have been a little bit busy :O)

Our little girl made a very punctual appearance into this world. She arrived on her due date and her daddy and I could not be more thrilled to have her in our lives.

Contractions started the night of Friday, March 19th. That evening I got very little sleep as I was having back labor, but nothing consistent or timeable. Finally around 5 am I was able to fall asleep and I slept until about 9 am. Chad and I just kind of lounged around that day since I was exhausted and still not feeling great. Around dinner time I got up off the couch and thought my water might be leaking. It was not a big gush, but just a little trickle. Chad and I got some dinner and again I thought I might be leaking. I called the doctor on call and he said it was probably urine from the baby sitting on my bladder. He told me I did not need to come in. I got off the phone and felt a little concerned because I knew it was not urine. I decided to take a shower to try to relax and noticed I was continually leaking. Chad suggested we go to the hospital anyway to get checked to ease my concerns.

Around 11pm we headed to the hospital. I was convinced they would check me and send me on my way home. At this point I was also having very mild contractions about 5 minutes apart, but nothing very painful. We arrived at the hospital and they immediately got me into a room and checked me to see if I had any amniotic fluid. They said the swab would turn blue if my water broke and as soon as they checked it immediately turned blue. Chad and I were both quite shocked. We would be staying until I had a baby!!! At the point I was only 3cm dilated and they suggested I walk a bit to help get things moving. So from 2-2:30 am and 4:-4:30 am I walked the halls of Labor and delivery. At 6 am the resident on call came in to check my progress and I was still only 3cm despite all the walking. I should have just slept instead of walking. Because I was making no progress the doctor decided to start me on pitocin to get things moving.

Our last picture as a family of two!!

At 7am they started the pitocin on the lowest setting and increased it every 20 minutes. My contractions started picking up, but I was still able to deal with the pain until about 9 am. At that point the contractions were pretty strong and uncomfortable so the nurse offered me some nubain for my pain. That stuff was amazing within 5 minutes of receiving the shot I felt like I was drunk and my body was all nice and tingly.

After I got the Nubain

Unfortunately at 10am the on call doctor from my practice came in to check me and ruined the wonderful high I was on. This was the same bozo that told me I peed myself the night before. He decided to put and internal contraction monitor in me because they were having a hard time picking up the contractions with the external monitor. While inserting the monitor he also checked my progress and I was still only 3 cm dilated. The doctor was so rough with his exam that I thought he was going to kill me. The nurse even said to me after he was done that she had never seen anything look so painful. While he was examining me he found that my bag of water was still intact so he broke it. He said most likely I just had a high leak which was why I was losing amniotic fluid. He looked over at the nurse and told her to get me my epidural ASAP because with him breaking my water and me being on pitocin contractions were going to be insane.

Within 5 minutes I was shaking uncontrollably because the contractions were so strong. Chad helped me breath through them, but my entire body was still shaking. Luckily the anesthesiologist got there at 10:30 and I got my epidural, which was heaven. I did not even care that they stuck a needle in my back because within 5 minutes I was numb. I noticed right away that my right hand side was not as numb as my left so they had me lie on my side to try to even the distribution of the epidural in my body. That worked until about 12:30 when I could fully feel my right side and the contractions. Again they were so bad I was shaking. I asked the nurse for some help and she got the anesthesiologist back. At first the anesthesiologist tried to just give me a boost of epidural medicine. When that did nothing for me she said she would have to re-do my epidural. At that point I did not care what she had to do to stop the pain. The second epidural was a huge success, I was completely numb on both sides.

At about 2 pm I was feeling pressure in my bottom so I called the nurse. She checked me and I was 8 cm. I was excited that my doctor came on at 1pm so she would be the one delivering our little girl and not the jerk I had to deal with the night before. At 3pm I was having even more pressure and when they checked me I was 10 cm and it was time to push!

I was so excited because I figured I would be meeting my baby girl soon. Soon happened to come after two hours of pushing. When I first started pushing I really thought she would be out within a half hour. I developed my false sense of hope from all of my friends who have pushed there babies out very quickly. I only have one friend who pushed more than 30 minutes (she pushed 3 hours) so I figured that was the exception and not the norm. The doctor did tell me from the start that the average 1st time mom pushes for 2 hours, but I laughed at that I thought to myself I will get her out faster than that. Well I guess I am just your average 1st time mom because after 2 hours Avery Grace Holzer made her appearance. She arrives at 4:47 pm weighing 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 20 inches long. She was immediately placed on my chest and both Chad and I were so in love. From the moment I saw her I said I had just given birth to a mini Chad. She looks exactly like her daddy. Luckily Grandma Carolyn and Papa Ernie arrived at the hospital about an hour and a half after Avery arrived after driving 12 hours from NJ.

First picture

Being weighed

Grandma Carolyn, Mommy and Avery

A little less swollen

Because my water had been leaking for more than 18 hours before Avery was delivered we had to stay in the hospital for at least 48 hours so that they could make sure she did not have any infections. We were so excited when we got to leave the hospital on Tuesday afternoon and bring Avery home for the first time.

Ready to go home

First Car Ride