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!