Miss Audrey Anne

It has taken me a few days to get pictures up, but we are excited to announce that Miss Audrey Anne has arrived. :)

I started having contractions on Sunday night. Nothing regular or too distracting so I decided to go to work on Monday (my goal was to teach through Tuesday and I made with the help of a snow day). By the end of the school day I was still having contractions, but they were not getting much stronger or any closer together so I wasn't too worried about them being "real." When Justin got home from work I was still having random contractions (3 minutes apart, then 7 minutes, then 5, then 11, etc). I hadn't really felt the baby move much though and I thought that my water may have started leaking at school so we decided to go to the hospital around 5:30 pm just to be sure.

We arrived at the OB department a little before 6 pm and by the time they checked me I was 4-5 cm dilated and the nurse agreed that my water hadn't broken all the way, but was leaking so they admitted us. We called our parents to start driving over in the pending snow storm and we were checked into our room.

By 7:30 pm I was dilated to a 6-7 and I got an epidural around 8 pm. I was fully dilated by 11 pm and started pushing shortly after that. As it turns out, Audrey did not really want to be born. :) I pushed for two hours with little progress and since her heart rate had been dropping off and on during the entire labor they decided to use vacuum assistance to help get her out.

Audrey was finally born at 1:57 am on Tuesday, November 23rd.

She had her cord wrapped around her neck two times and her hand was also caught up in the cord, but we were able to get her out without the need for an emergency surgery.

Audrey was 19 1/2 inches long and weighed 6 lbs. 13 oz. at birth. She has big feet and long eye lashes and is a very sweet natured baby so far. Justin and I could not feel more blessed with the wonderful gift we have been given. Thanks for all your prayers and support, we greatly appreciate them. More pictures to come soon.

My parent's exchange student Francesca

Uncle Nick

Grandpa Randy

Grandma Lynne

Grandma Liz