Avery Elizabeth is here!

Well, after complaining of not wanting to wait, God has blessed us with the arrival of a beautiful, healthy baby girl. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 2 oz. and was 21 inches long, born at 6:57 pm on Thursday, February 26th. There are two interesting things about the day of her birth. First, I've been getting surprises every Thursday for the past month (won the Golden Apple award, staff from school threw a baby shower, students from school threw a baby shower, received my Golden Apple award gift basket, all on Thursdays). So, I had a theory going that I would have this baby on a Thursday...and I did. Also, Corrie was born Dec. 26th, so Corrie and Avery are exactly 2 years and 2 months apart. :)
My water broke at 7 am yesterday morning and we left pretty quickly after that for the hospital, knowing that we would need to have the baby within 24 hours. When we arrived at the hospital, they were already filling up with pregnant women, to the point that we waited for a room for about an hour. They attributed their slowness to the rain, which was caused by a change in barometric pressure, which caused women to go into labor, which filled up their rooms. I didn't care about the explanation, I just wanted a room! :)
We finally got back into a room and they checked to be sure my water had broken (which it had) and told me I was between 3 & 4 cm dilated. After a few hours of moderate and inconsistent contractions, they checked again and I was still between 3 & 4 cm, so they decided to start Pitocin. I knew this would cause me to be in more pain, but I wanted to wait until I was 5 or 6 cm to get an epidural, #1 to see if I could handle it without the epidural, and #2 because I was afraid it would slow down my labor. Within an hour, my contractions got much more painful and started to be more consistent. I knew I was struggling and probably still had awhile to go, so I went ahead and asked for an epidural. They came in about an hour after that to actually do the epidural and I was really struggling with strong contractions. They got the epidural going and checked me again and found that I was 9 cm! No wonder I was struggling so much, but I thought I was still only around 5. The rest of my labor went pretty smoothly once the epidural kicked in. I was able to actually enjoy the experience of labor this time and even watched Avery being born with a mirror!
It's so funny to see how different Corrie and Avery are already - Corrie was not very happy the first few weeks of her life. She cried a good bit with stomach problems and was very vocal when she wanted things. Avery, so far, has been very quiet, just taking everything in. She loves her pacifier (which Corrie would never take) and loves to snuggle or lay in her bassinet. She's so quiet that I thought the nurses had taken her out of the room right after labor because I couldn't hear her making a sound after her initial cries! I'm so going to enjoy discovering the differences between my two little girls!
Here are a couple of pictures we've taken this first day of life for Avery, and a Corrie picture to compare them to. Enjoy!

Avery Elizabeth

The new addition to our family! (Don't you hate what a whole bunch of fluid in an IV does to your face?)

Corrie @ 1 month