IT'S A GIRL!!!!

Well, she's finally here, our little Afton Simone. Born May 9th, 6lbs 12oz, 19in long and finally a blondie!! 

I have been trying to get these posted for the last week but we were having internet problems so now that we are up and running again here they are. We had a photoshoot with her a couple times over the last couple of weeks and I am excited to get those pics all edited and posted but for now here are some pics of the first few days of this little squirt's life!!

These were taken on Tuesday, the day after she was born in the hospital right before we left. They were taken with my phone so they are not very clear, but  I just love them anyway.

Now for the story...

Sunday (Mother's Day) we had a crazy day planned. Demi was speaking in my parent's ward at 9:30, then two of my sister-in-laws decided to have a joint baby blessing since they were in the same ward but they split up their open houses. Melissa's was before the blessing, which was at 1pm, and then Tiffany's was right after the blessing. So we went from Demi's talk to Melissa's brunch, then to the blessings at 1, then to Tiffany's at 2 then to Mom & Dad's for a Mother's Day dinner. 

Throughout the whole day I had been having contractions every hour or so. Not the painful ones, just the tightening of the abdomen type, so I assumed they were probably Braxton Hicks. When we got to Mom's for dinner they started getting a little more frequent and intense so I decided to pay closer attention to them and Dev and I came up with a rating system. I would tell him when I was having a  contraction, he would keep track of the time intervals and I would tell him how intense the pain was on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being excruciating. By the time we left for home they were about 20 minutes apart and were at about a 5. Mom was pretty sure we would be going in that night but I was still pretty skeptical since the same thing had happened a few nights before. However, by the time we got the kiddos in bed and into bed ourselves they had progressed to 8 minutes apart and at a 6.

 I had previously decided that since I was going to go natural I wanted to do as much laboring as I could at home and since when I was pregnant with Calyn I went in when my contractions were 5 minutes apart but still had to wait about 9 hours before delivering I decided I would wait until they were 3 or 4 minutes apart. However, I knew that these contractions, although only 7 min apart, were much more intense than any I had ever had. So by 2:30am I told Dev we had better go in. I was worried that I would go in only to find out that I was only dilated to a 3 or so. 

Dev called his Mom who came over to the house to sleep since the kids were sleeping and we were off. I texted Mom and Demi to let them know we were heading in since they were both invited to be in the room with us during the delivery.

By 3am we were finally at the hospital but when we got there we forgot to drive to the ER doors since it was after hours so we had to walk from the front doors around to the ER doors, stopping once to fight through a contraction...OUCH!! When we finally got into our room and all set up the nurse checked me and told me I was already dilated to 7 and she was calling my Dr. immediately to come right in!!! The best news ever! By 4am the doc was there and I was dilated to a 9 now it was just a matter of waiting for my water to break. The  contractions were so intense I was having to focus all of my attention on breathing through them so we decided that I was close enough to go ahead and have the doc break my water. 2 contractions later I was pushing!!! It was only about 3 contractions worth of pushing when she finally came out and amongst all of the pain and craziness I had forgotten that we didn't know the gender yet so when it finally registered that they were telling me I had a little baby girl I realized they had said it about 3 or 4 times before I even caught on!! She was a girl and she was here safely and despite the fears that I had acquired over the last hour, I was still  alive!

What an amazing experience this was, and an incredible blessing parenthood is!! I am so thankful for my beautiful little angel and for my Calyn and Rylan as well. I also feel so lucky to have such an amazing partner to share this blessing of parenthood with.