An Avery Update

So these pictures are not the best quality, but they illustrate two really great things Avery has started doing - sucking her hand to self-soothe, and smiling!  She smiles the most when she is on her changing table.  It is like this magical zone in which she is always in a good mood.  We have no idea why, but we take advantage! We have probably spent hours so far with her on the changing table smiling and talking to each other :) It is so much fun!

Change

(This post is about two weeks behind the times)  

               

 Changes that are happening at our house this week:

·       Brad is starting his new job

·       I am working my last week at Wencor

·       We are moving to North Salt Lake

Let’s start with Brad’s new job because that leads to the other changes. Brad took a job with Accretive Health – a Chicago-based healthcare consulting company - to work with them on their contract with IHC.  He is going to Chicago for training for a few days, and then will continue training in West Valley for a few months before he gets assigned to some physician clinics to work at.  We are excited because he likes consulting and is interested in the healthcare industry, so this is a really good job for him.  There are also going to be opportunities later on to work on other consulting projects that the company has going in various parts of the country, so we might actually get to experience life outside of Utah soon!  That would be exciting.

So we found a really great place to live this past week and are moving on Saturday.  Our new place is a townhouse in North Salt Lake, and I think we are going to like it.  It is a two bedroom that is pretty similar to what we are in now, with the added bonus of a garage! We have already met some of our neighbors, and they are really nice.  We are also right next to a park and our church.  And I am so excited because we are only going to be 10 minutes away from my sister Andrea! Which will be so much fun! I am really excited about that.

So because of all of these changes, I have put in my notice at work.  As of this Friday I will officially be a full-time mommy. I am excited! Also, putting in my notice could not have gone better. My boss was so nice about it, and HR is not going to make us pay for the company’s portion of the insurance for the past 8 weeks, AND they are paying me my full salary for working minimal hours this week.  Thank you Wencor! 

Life is going to be so different with Brad now making the money and me being home all day. But this is how we both want it to be.  I have learned a lot from working full-time, and so I am glad that I had the opportunity to do so and I know that I will be a bit sad to leave. But I am so so so grateful that I get to be with Avery all the time.  I miss her while I am at work. And I know that Brad is going to feel better being the one bringing home the bacon. For the first time since he was 16 he hasn’t had a job the past 6 months.  I think he prefers working as opposed to just studying.  Our roles are becoming more traditional

Avery's Smile

Avery's developmental update - 6 weeks

Avery is growing up so fast! Here is a list of her wicked awesome skills so far:

• Pooping violently and being really smelly afterwards
• Smiling socially!
• Holding her legs straight at a 45 degree angle while lying on her back
• Lifting her head while on her tummy
• Responding vocally to us sometimes
• Rotating her head from one side to the other - once she gets going with this back and forth, it is almost as if she can't stop :)
• High pitched shrieking
• Eating voraciously
• Not spitting up very much
• Staying awake for 5 hours at a time - she is the most alert baby ever! (Don't worry I try to prevent this, and she doesn't do it very often)
• Growing rolls of fat - most prominent in her double chin and and very upper thighs :)
• Peeing in a stream that arcs away from landing on the second diaper we put under her while we change her
• Getting people to tell her she is beautiful
• Melting her parents' hearts

Some preferences she has made perfectly clear include:

• When she is upset, constant movement calms her down or
• Being up on someone's shoulder is her favorite
• Freedom to kick her legs like an Irish dancer - she won't tolerate any restriction of movement from clothing or blankets on her legs
• She doesn't like to cuddle in a sideways position against your chest like most babies do

Random facts:

• Her hands smell like sour milk pretty much all the time
• It is practically impossible to clean in her neck folds
• She always has lint in her toes
• Her hands and feet are clammy
• Her skin is SO soft - my favorite thing to do is squeeze her fat silky thighs :)

We feel so lucky because she is such a good baby! She has quite a calm disposition most of the time - I was hoping she would get that from Brad, and I think she might have - fingers crossed that it continues that way! 

First Bath

She is so adorable!  I am so in love with this child!

Family Photos

Avery's Birth Story

First of all, if you don't want to read the whole story, I will just start out by showing you the fabulous ending of the story:

 Avery Jade Tilley

7 lbs 3 oz, 19.5"

Born May 1st 2012, 7:41 a.m.

We had such an awesome experience getting her here. I know that not everyone can say that so I feel really lucky. Giving birth was one of the best experiences of my life.

Because I was a week overdue and my cervix was still looking "unfavorable" for birth, my doctor scheduled an induction to start Monday night with the expectation that it would take at the very least 24 hours. He was going to start me on some drugs Monday night to make that dang cervix more favorable, and then we would start Pitocin in the morning to start giving me contractions.  I was so excited to get to the hospital that Monday night to get the ball rolling that for the first time in our relationship, I was the one who was telling the other to hurry up and that it was going to take longer to get there than we would think etc.  I was so hyper. 

We checked in and they started hooking me up to all the machines and they even numbed the place where they were going to put my IV before they stuck me which was funny.  So we started the first dose of Sidotech around 8:30. My mom came to visit for a minute to make sure she would know where to find me the next day. The doctor told us to try to go to sleep as early as possible because we would have a long day ahead of us the next day.  When they offered me an Ambien, I took it because I though labor was so far in the future.  Too bad Brad couldn't have one as well because I am quite sure that the night seemed a lot longer to him than it did to me once it was all over.  

I started having progressively stronger contractions pretty soon after the first dose of Sidatech. At around midnight they checked me and I was still only dilated to a 2, so I got another dose for my pesky unfavorable cervix.  The contractions were coming really fast by this point and were really painful. I threw up at some point. I took some drug that I don't remember the name of for the pain that was only meant to last for an hour for each dose. My pain medication preferences going into this was that I wanted to get an epidural early on in case I needed an emergency C-section. If there was something wrong with my baby I didn't want the doctors to have to waste time giving me an epidural or putting me out with general anesthesia. I am really glad that Brad convinced me to do this. The other thing I didn't want was to be on any drugs other than the epidural when she was born.  I didn't want to feel loopy or weird mentally when she arrived. Anyway, when they told me this drug was only going to last for an hour, I took it.  The next time they checked me I was a three. After throwing up again from the pain the nurse looked at me and asked me if I wanted my epidural now.  It was nice that she asked because I hadn't thought about it yet, and from the look on her face I could tell she thought I could really use it. It made me feel like less of a wuss that a nurse who sees women in labor all the time felt bad enough for me to suggest the epidural. So while I was getting it, I was in lots of pain. I think that is why the anesthesiologist let me lay oon my side for it. Brad was holding my hand and hope he doesn't get mad at me for revealing this, but he cried a little because of seeing me in that much pain from the contractions. I love him. After the procedure was done they checked me and the nurse said "Wow." I thought to myself "Ooh, maybe I am a 4 or 5 now!" But the nurse said "I think you are complete!" And then a second later said, "Actually, you are probably an 8 because you aren't complete all the way around."

So we called my mom and Brad's mom and told them to come quick! We waited about another hour or so and then I was complete.  The nurse had the doctor come break my water.  She didn't mention to him that I had a bulging sack, so when he broke it, it popped like a ballon, and the fluid went up his arm and got on his leg etc. I felt a little bad for him cause he had to go change, but it was pretty funny :)

The nurse started having us do some practice pushes with me and Brad before she called the doctor. Avery's heart rate dropped a lot and took a while to go back up every time that I pushed though, so we stopped after only a few pushes and they put me on oxygen and had me rest on my side. Obviously that scared me.  Especially when the nurse couldn't find the baby's heart rate at one point. I was wondering to myself if I was going to be able to have her vaginally.  This is the point at which I was really glad that I was ready to be cut open quickly if need be. She did not like the pushing at all apparently.  As an interesting side note, her heart rate also dropped whenever the nurse or doctor touched her head, so she didn't like that either...

We had to wait for a doctor to be available to come deliver Avery because the one that was already at the hospital was in another procedure.  This turned out to be a good thing because the contractions that I was having while waiting really helped move her down further through the birth canal.  When Dr. Thorpe came he had me push  a couple times so he could see what happened when I did.  He told me after the birth that he fully expected Avery to come out with the cord wrapped around her neck because that is what her heart rate was indicating. He decided that we could try to get her out vaginally, and that he would use foreceps to make sure she was able to get out quickly.  I pushed once while he was using the forceps and cutting me so she would fit, and then he was able to grab her head with his hand, and after one more push she was out.

That was the most amazing moment of my life pretty much.  There are a few others that have to do with Brad and I getting married that might be able to compete with that moment, but still, it was incredible. Its like the Spirit just rushed into the room so strongly the moment she came out, we all started bawling. I got a glimpse of her white little body that was all bloody and wet and she looked so amazing to me. She was crying and we were crying and it was so beautiful. 

They put her on the warming table and were doing what they do, and we couldn't take our eyes off her. I didn't stop crying with happiness for quite awhile. She was screaming her head off which was such a beautiful sound. Once the nurse put her on my chest, she calmed down instantly, which was so sweet. The whole thing was absolutely wonderful.  

And ever since, we have been living happily ever after.  Avery is literally a little angel baby. She is so perfect and it is so fun having her here!