The Birth of Max Edd Fry

Sunday morning, March 7, 2010, I began having contractions, just one every hour or so. I knew that this could go on for days, so I wasn't concerned about going into labor anytime soon. Micah and I got up that morning, got dressed and went to church. Ava was in Paris for the weekend, so we had plans to just take it easy all day. I continued to have small contractions every hour, but nothing major. We decided to have Ava come home since we had no idea when the baby would come. Micah's parents brought her home around 6 Sunday evening, and I was still having contractions about every hour. As soon as they left, though, my contractions went from every hour to every 30 minutes. Then my water broke, and the contractions went from 30 minutes to 10 minutes, then to 5. And they hurt! We called his parents and my mom and asked them all to come to our house and they did. As soon as my mom got to the house Micah and I left for the hospital, a long and bumpy 30 minute drive. It was not that enjoyable for me! When we got to the hospital we went to the ER and were taken back to labor and delivery. My contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart and painful, but were manageable as long as I was standing up or walking around. When we got into the room, they made me lie in the bed so the nurse could check things out. They did determine that my water had broke, but I was still only about 2 cm dilated and the baby was very high. Because of this they made me stay in bed because walking around could cause the cord to prolapse. I had gone into the hospital wanting a natural birth-no meds-but once they told me I couldn't move around, I knew that was out the window. I wanted the epidural. This was about 10:00 Sunday night. I labored until about 2 am and finally got the epidural. I lasted that long without any other drugs, so I was glad. I didn't want any narcotics this time like I had with Ava, and I didn't get any. That made this labor and delivery soooo much better!

Having a contraction before the epidural.


At the time of the epidural, I was about 3 cm and having regular contractions. After the epi, I felt great and we slept. I was checked about 5 am and was progressing, 5 cm dilated and 100% effaced and the baby had dropped quite a bit. I wasn't checked again until about 7:30 Monday morning, and even then the nurse wasn't going to, but she noticed the baby's HR dropping when I had contractions. She checked and was shocked that I was 10 cm, 100% effaced, and the baby was right there! We woke Micah up, she put me in stirrups, and called the doctor. I started pushing about 8 and the baby didn't like it very much. He was born at 8:38 am March 8, 2010. The cord was wrapped around his neck, which was why he wasn't crazy about contractions and pushing. He's fine, though, and so am I! He weighed in at 7 pounds, 10 ounces and was 20 1/4 inches long. We named him Max Edd because Max is a name that Micah and I both liked, and Edd is Micah's grandfather's name. Our last name is Fry, so we figured we would let him have it too, just to make it easy.

After the delivery, I was hungry!



Nana and Granpa with Max



Grammy and Ava with Max. She was very unsure of him at first.


Ava and Max at home. Once we got him home, she really warmed up to him. She runs around the house yelling "Baby! Baby!" and tries to give him his pacifier all the time.


Sorry there aren't more pictures. With Ava, when we got to the hospital I wasn't having any contractions and I felt fine so we thought about taking pictures. Not this time! I'll post more later, though.

Ava's New Hobby

Ava loves to color! Well, actually she loves to take every crayon out of the box and hold them all at one time while attempting to color with one hand. When she actually does color, she does a pretty good job for an 18 month old. She generally will hoard her colors in her left hand while using her right hand to actually color with the crayon of choice. And she holds the crayon correctly while coloring! She does this with a pencil, also, and loves to walk around with a pencil and notepad and scribble. She can say the names of all the colors-they've been working on this at MDO-but she doesn't know which color is which yet. She seems to like the brown and blue a lot, though.

Playing Outside

In between our days of 3 inches of snow (crazy!) we've had some good weather and have gotten to outside and play. Here are just a few pictures. I've got some video of Ava yelling at Tank that I will try to post later.





Sunday it was warm enough that Ava decided she could go for a swim.

Eating

Meal times at our house are usually lots of fun, and I'm not being sarcastic! Ava really is a good eater and generally eats whatever I fix her. Breakfast we usually either sit at the table and eat waffles or oatmeal and some sort of fruit, or we sit in the recliner and eat while watching cartoons. Ava prefers the recliner. Lunch and dinner we eat at the table and she does well for both, though she has been doing some things lately that make us laugh. She has started to like eating her food directly off the plate. We've been working (not very diligently) on using utensils, but I think she's decided that eating directly off the plate is a much more efficient way of getting all the food she wants in her mouth.




Last Sunday Micah decided that we would go to Waxahachie and try out Logan's Roadhouse. It was okay, not as good as Texas Roadhouse. Ava's favorite thing was the butter. She picked up the tub that came with our rolls and shoved it in her face and proceeded to lick the butter out. When we took it away, she was not a happy camper. So we gave it back and Micah and I enjoyed our meal while Ava ate butter.



Notice her cute white tutu sticking out from under her A&M jacket. This is an outfit that our friend Whitney gave Ava and it's really cute, but white, so I put the jacket on her to protect the outfit. It worked really well. I think this jacket will be Ava's new bib!

Ava's Antics

Ava does funny things all the time. Here are just a few of her recent antics. She decided the flowers were thirsty and needed a drink. She also has gotten into putting her food in interesting places and then eating it, like my hot chocolate, the bathtub, the floor,

The Baby's Room-37 Weeks.

The baby's room is done...enough. The crib is ready, the changing table is ready, we've got diapers, wipes, and clothes, so I think we are good to go! I'm 37 weeks pregnant, which means I'm full term and I could have this baby any time in the next six weeks! My technical due date is March 13, so I've got less than a month left. I went to the doctor yesterday, she said everything looked good. The baby has dropped a little and is head down. I told her that Micah was going to be out of town next week and she said that should be fine. I think she was going to check and see if I was dilated at all, but decided not to since Micah was going to be gone. She didn't want to freak us out if I was dilated any, because it really doesn't mean anything! I could be dilated to a 4 for weeks or not dilated at all and have the baby the next day (like I did with Ava). She thought I would be just fine for one more week. However, when I was leaving she let me know that she was on call this weekend, so if anything started to happen I should come on in! That made me realize that I need to get on the ball and start packing my bags and getting things together!

Snow!

Yesterday it snowed off and on all morning long in Corsicana, but it never really stuck. Finally, about 3:00, the snow started to stick. When Ava woke up from her nap, there were huge snowflakes falling and the backyard was white. She looked out the backdoor, her eyes got really wide, and she said, "Whoa!" She was very excited about the snow. We got out this morning, layered her in tons of clothes, and played in the snow. She thought it was great, as long as she didn't have to touch it. She loved walking in it, but wouldn't taste it and didn't like it on her hands. Tank came out and played with us, too, and he felt pretty much the same way. His toys kept getting lost in the snow and he wasn't too crazy about that. Overall I think we got about 5 or 6 inches. Ava played for awhile, then finally fell down and said she was all done!