The Best and Scariest Day of My Life

It was August 30 and I was working at Medina Hospital for the day.  I had a pain when I was walking that stopped me in my tracks around 1pm. Then it happened again about 20 minutes later. I went to the bathroom and had a brownish discharge so I called the OB nurse and they told me to drink lots of water and if I get the pain 4 times in an hour to call back. It started happening more frequently.

I called at 3:30 and they told me to go to Hillcrest labor and delivery. My friend Nichole, whom I was working with, drove me from Medina to Hillcrest. I told Tim to keep working because they probably would just observe me for a few hours. I started having contractions every 7 minutes in the car. Nichole was timing them. I didn't want to scare her but they started occurring about every 3 minutes. I got  to the hospital around 5pm and then everything happened so fast. The triage nurse was talking with me and I was having contractions like every minute. I called Tim and told him he might want to come to the hospital. She grabbed a doctor from the hallway and he went to check me and when he did, my water broke and he said he could see either a head or butt and that I was fully dilated. They didn't know if she was breached or not. My next contraction they told me to push, they got the IV in as I was pushing. I had one more contraction and pushed her out. Poor Tim missed it. I never made it to the delivery room, I had her in the nurse triage area. There were about 10 doctors/nurses/specialists there. They took her and cleaned her up, intubated her and stabilized her a little in the room. She was born at 5:48pm and weighed 1 pound 9 oz and was 12.5 inches long. They brought her over to me for a quick second, I gave her a kiss on the head (which is smaller than my fist) and they took her off to the NICU. They said her heart rate is really good, she can breath on her own a little but needs the breathing tube because her lungs aren't fully developed. She has a few different lines in her belly button to take blood, give her medicine, etc. Her one eye is open and the other eye is still fused shut because she is so early. They said it should open in a few days. She also has a cleft palette so eventually we will have to get that fixed. They said she seems to be a good weight for her age and that she really seems to be a fighter.

Our first family photo.

Avery was about two hours old and Tim still has his work uniform on.