First Dr. Visit

Avery went to her first pediatrician appointment on Friday. It was pretty hectic trying to get mommy, daddy and Avery ready to get out of the house in the morning. Early morning appointment was not a good idea.. Now I understand why my friends who have babies or kids are always running late and never on-time. Whole new found respect for mommies out there! Avery put on her special outfit that daddy got her and we were off to see Dr. Beesley.

At the Dr.'s office, all other babies cried in the waiting area except Avery! She slept quietly in her carseat. She was an angel. She even played and smiled the whole time during the exam! Dr. Beesley said "she's a keeper... You should definitely keep her." Yup, she's a keeper! She sleeps for 3 hour stretches and never cries... She's really an angel. I remember my friend Sara saying after the birth of her son, "He's so easy, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." That's how I feel these days. Avery is fed around midnight, then she wakes up once around 4am and then sleeps till 7am or so. But boy, does she eat!!! She is a porker! We don't really hear her cry since she wakes up and plays by herself until we come to feed her.

Our Avery grew in the last week! She is now 8 pounds 11.5 ounces and 20.25 inches. Yay! Although pregnancy and delivery was a little rough, having a fully developed, healthy baby was all worth it. She is already so alert and strong.

Avery Eunae Hwang is born!!!!

It's been a while since my last blog but lots have happened since then. Our little angel, Avery Eunae Hwang was born on April 16th at 6:30pm at Good Samaritan Hospital. She was a whopping 8 pounds 4 ounces and 20 inches long. Since my last blog called "Game Plan," things went a little different than we all expected and I feel the need to document the happenings of April 16th in this blog to show my daughter one day what an ordeal I went through to have her when she says her first "mommy, how could you do that to me?" haha!

We were admitted at Good Samaritan Hospital at midnight on April 16th. We began dripping Pitocin around 1:30am to induce labor. By 8 am, I was 3cm dilated and was having pretty strong contractions. Around 9am, Dr. Bohn broke my bag of water and that was painful! I was given Epidural around 1pm or so but I tried to go on with as little epidural as possible since I heard that epidural may slow contractions and I didn't want to be completely numb when the time to push came. By 3pm, I was 6cm dilated and doing well and the contractions were out of this world!!! They were coming at less than 2 minutes apart and lasted a minute or so.. So as soon as I got through the contraction, another one came in a flash. Paul and I were excited and thought that we would have a baby by late night. But around 4pm, the baby's heartrate slowed a little and we had to turn off Pitocin for an hour. When her heartrate returned to normal, we turned Pitocin back on but by then, I was bleeding pretty badly. We waited another hour for the bleeding to stop and by 6pm, the doctor told us that the baby dropped suddenly and made my cervix so swollen that it was impossible for the baby to come out vaginally. The only choice was to have a C-section which was a hard news to hear but by that point, I was so tired from my 18-hour labor that I welcomed the surgery.

Paul and I were in the operating room, Paul with his video camera in hand, and the doctor called out, "look at the size of this head!" Then we heard "your baby is huge, there is no way she would have come out of you vaginally anyways." I wish we knew that earlier before our 18-hour labor!!! THEN we heard the most amazing sound ever! The sound of our little girl crying. Paul went to cut the unbilical cord and yelled out "she looks like an Avery." We were debating between the names Avery and Emma and decided that we'll choose a name after we saw her in person. She was an Avery! Paul brought her over to me while I was being closed up and she was just beautiful and I could not believe that she came out of my body! It was the happiest day of my life hands down!

In labor approx. hour 3 - Still happy

Paul ready for surgery
Avery is born!

Mommy meets Avery for the first time!

8 pounds and 4 ounces!

Game Plan

Ok! We now have a game plan! Paul and I just got back from the dr. appointment. By the way, tomorrow is Paul's birthday so please wish him a happy day!

Our due date was Saturday and it has obviously passed. We listened to the baby's heartbeat which was just fine and she moved around thoughout the whole checkup which the Dr. said was a sign of a happy healthy baby. But since our baby was in the 60th percentile in the size department 3 weeks ago when we measured her and the baby is obviously healthy right now, she recommended that we not wait too long to have this baby... The longer we wait, the less happy the baby will be and the harder it'll be for me to have a baby naturally without a c-section. So! The doctor did a simple procedure today that might bring on labor naturally sometime today or tomorrow. If the contractions do not come naturally by the end of tomorrow, then we have an appointmet at midnight to go to the hospital to be induced. So we'll have a baby for sure either Thursday or Friday morning at the latest if the induction takes a long time.

If the baby decides to come all on her own, then there is a chance that she'll be born on Paul's birthday! That'd be awesome. What could be a better birthday gift to Paul than a baby girl!

Mommy's ready!

Ok, princess, mommy and daddy are ready for you!!!

We have officially now reached 40 weeks. Tomorrow is our due date and our little girl seems to not want to come out at all anytime soon. We had our doctor's appointment yesterday and Dr. Bohn said I was a little over 1cm dilated and a bit effaced. We made another appointment for Tuesday at which time we'll talk about our options...

Our little girl is definitely a Hwang! She'll be fashionably late coming out to the world but she'll come out dancing and having a great time! Being a very large family with parents, 5 boys, 2 wives and now 2 babies, Hwang family is rarely on-time but we always have a great time wherever we go!

Below is what I hope is my last belly picture I took today...

Family Visit

This past Sunday, my parents came to visit us with my niece, Minji. Since I haven't gone to Orange County to my parents' house in over 3 weeks, I missed my little niece sooo bad! I didn't want us to drive to Orange County just in case we got stuck on the freeway when our baby decided to come. My mom brought us tons of homemade food for us to eat for the next few days, yay! Minji made us laugh all day long. She is too cute! We tried a new restaurant in Koreatown called So Hyang which we all agreed is a keeper on our restaurant list. Yum.

Spending Time with Friends

Paul and I have been trying to spend some time with friends and have dinners and enjoy our last couple weeks of time before our little girl comes and we become confined to our home... Vivenne and I went to eat at this great little seafood place in Alhambra called Boiling Crab and we had to wait over an hour but the food was delicious! It was very low-key, we had sweet potato fries, spicy cajun crawfish and corn. YUM-O!!!! I want to eat it again but I don't think I can do the hour wait until after the baby comes... The first picture below is me before we started eating and the second picture is me after we finished..... So good!

Our friend Hyun Sun let us babysit her maltese, Mochi, while she went on her weekend trips (2 weekends in a row). Mochi is the smallest, cutest dog! We wanted to steal her from Hyun Sun!!! She is so affectionate and attached to us and she slept with us too! We were so sad when she was picked up.... We took her to Brad and Shawna's house for dinner and Tommy just loved her. Tommy said "I love Mochi, can she stay over?" Sooo cute!

Maternity Leave!!!

I started my maternity leave today!!!!! YAY!!! I have been sooo looking forward to this! The last couple weeks were really tough, mentally and physically. The anxiety of the baby coming any day now AND the uncomfortableness of carrying 28 extra pounds was pretty tough. Yesterday was bittersweet... I felt sad leaving work and saying goodbye to everyone since I'll be gone for 3 months but happy to have some time to myself until our little bundle of joy arrives!

I woke up this morning completely clueless as to what I should do today... I think this is the first time since I graduated college where I had a day to myself where I'm not sick, or on vacation or working from home.. I had no work emails or voicemails to check and I can do whatever I want! After a few minutes of lying in bed blankly, I got going and loved the rest of the day! I met my hubby for lunch and then we went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought some bed sheets.. We desperately needed some new sheets so we were both so excited to get them! Oh, life's littlest pleasures.. Once you get married and get older, bedsheets are what get you excited!!! I was so tired after our shopping trip, I even took a nap! How great is that, I can take a nap!!! Everyone tells me to get as much sleep as possible now before baby arrives so I guess I can use this maternity time to sleep!!! YAY!

We have a little over a week until our due date.. I'm hoping she'll decide to come out sometime in the next few days.. But we'll see!!! In due time when she's ready, I suppose.. So keep your eyes open for our email announcing the birth of our little precious girl!!!!

Hwang out! (I love American Idol..)