Ava's First Chick Flick

That's right folks. Ava has successfully been to her first movie theater movie! Mom, Leah and I all wanted to go see Mama Mia at the movies and we were like "why not?". Ava pretty much slept through the whole thing...having a quick bottle in the middle.

We've had a really fun week with all the family being here and all. Today Ava is 1 week old and the last of our house guests just left a few hours ago. She and I are just sitting here watching TV (Chase went to visit his grandparents for a few days). Yesterday at church someone said "wow, I can't believe you are out and about and here"! I thought that was strange since Ava was almost a week old at the time. I have to say I'm NOT a home-body and neither is my family. We all get a little stir crazy if we sit around too much...and since I have felt pretty great since we got home, we have had a very busy week. I thought I would give you a quick run down of what all we have been up to during Ava's first week of life...mostly so you can think we're crazy. :)

Mon - Ava born 3:41 p.m.
Tues - Go home from hospital around 5:00 p.m., dinner at home
Wed - Dinner out with our families
Thurs - Ava doctor appt (she weighed 7 lb, 4 1/2 oz), lunch out, shopping trip to target with all the girls
Fri - lunch out then 4 hours of clothes shopping with my mom and sisters!
Sat - Breakfast out then coffee shop, later we all went to a book store to hang out for a while, dinner out, later that evening Preston and I left Ava with my mom and sister and we went to get dessert by ourselves...it was a nice mini date. :)
Sun - Church, lunch out, then that night was the movie

Great week!

Birth Story

For those of you who are interested here is Ava's birth story:
On Monday morning, July 28th Preston went to work really early as usual and very shortly after that I started to have pretty regular contractions. They weren't very significant at first but then they started to pick up in intensity so I called Preston right after he got to work to tell him to come back home...it was baby time! We didn't waste much time after he got back and were headed out the door by 8:30 or so. We dropped Chase off with some friends (thanks guys!) and headed on to the hospital. Now I know the ladies there get lots of false alarms walking in their door but she was VERY skeptical as to whether I was really in labor or not. She asked all her questions with an unbelieving tone to her voice, "now is this your first pregnancy?", "your contractions are how far apart", "well we'll take a look and see if you're dilated". I was like look lady, no this is number 2...I've done this before, contractions are only 6 minutes apart, I was dilated to a 5 six days ago, and yes I am definitely in labor so lets get this show on the road so I can get my epidural! (Of course I'm way too nice to actually talk to her like that....but I was thinking it! ;) Once I was admitted we moved up to the delivery room. I got my epidural very quickly....way before I was in any real pain so that was awesome. Our nurse was great! Preston and I just hung out, called family, wrote in Ava's baby book, and talked about what we thought she would look like and made bets on how much she would weigh. I'm not sure who won b/c I can't remember what numbers we bet on! Things went a little slower than I thought considering my labor with Chase was pretty quick...but this one was about the same. Nine hours total in labor isn't bad! At 2:45 or so our nurse said it was time for shift change and that she would be leaving...I was sad b/c she was so good. I was dilated to a 9 and she said it wouldn't be long. After that our new nurse didn't come by for 45 MINUTES! I was starting to be in some pretty bad pain and felt a lot of pressure and the urge to push...I knew things were happening. There were a few people in and out and we called the nurses station at least 3 times but they all said "we'll page your nurse". She was a no show! I was getting mad...I'm still mad about it. When she finally came in she said OK lets see how far along you are and when she checked she was like "oh man! you're crowning!" Yeah no crap lady! About that time the anesthesiologist came in and got me nice and comfortable again. The nurses told me not to push and I said "I didn't know I was!" How can you know when you can't feel your lower half! My doctor literally ran down the hall and got there just in time for me to push about twice and Ava was out in no time! (Quite a change from Chase's 2 1/2 hours of pushing.) I was really in shock that it was so fast and there she was. It was soooo cool. I can't explain how it feels to see a whole person that you created for the first time. AMAZING!

Here are a few more pictures of the last day or so:

Chillin' on the couch
Ava and daddy
Bath time!