Hello World...

...my name is Avery.

And with what only can be discribed as a ROAR, Avery Elizabeth Baker entered the world at 5:16 am on August 20, 2008.

At 12:30 am on August 19th, Christine's water broke, by 4 am we were at the hospital. My 9 am she was on pitocin and the contractions were getting stronger, but then it happened, or it actually wasn't happening. Christine was still only 1 cm dilated, she had been that way since August 18th, and now is was 11:30 pm on the 19th. She was having contractions like she should of been at least 7 cm, but she wasn't dilated any further and apparantly Avery was very happy to be where she was that, thank you very much

So after 11:30 pm, it was decided to give her an epidural to help her possibly relax more and more importantly help her with the pain. Usually they don't give epidurals until one is at least 3 cm, but with Christine's pain becoming more and more unbearable, it was necessary.

After a short little nap, at 4 am, August 20th, Christine was only 2.5 cm dilated; this is not good. So the options were presented which included, wait another 8 hours for a possible non c-section birth, but that was only about 10-15% likely of happening. Also at this point Avery's heart rate was dropping in between contractions making Christine have to frequently change positions. No fun also. So the likely hood of having a c-section was there no matter what, and we decided earlier that this was a good choice if needed.

At 4:30 am she was wheeled into the operating room and at 5:16 am, Avery came into the world. Mom and child are both doing very well. Christine is recovering on schedule and Avery is doing all the things babies do (eating, sleeping, pooping). She was 6 lbs 14 ozs and 19 inchs long, with a head covered in black hair.

We want to thank everybody for the love and support that has given to us and we are excited for Avery to meet you.

How cool is this....

On Thursday Christine and I went to Siemens Ultrasound to get another look at baby Avery Baker. Thanks to our friends the Van Gorkoms, who told us about Siemens Ultrasound, we got some great 3D pictures of her. Siemens pays you a little bit of money to come in and get an ultrasound done so then if the pictures are good, they can use the shots in their marketing material. We saw her heart beating, the blood flowing through it, saw her hiccup and she saw her moving her legs around all over the place. Here are pictures of the baby:

Her right arm is on the left and her face is in the center. You can see her eyes, nose, and mouth.

This is another picture of her face also in this shot is the unbilical cord (it's across her chin) she was playing with it when she wasn't playing with her toes.

This one is of her left arm and her leg. Check our that calf muscle!

Lastly, a short clip of Avery moving her fingers and giving you a sneak peek of her little chin and mouth.