Welcome Baby Arya!

So 5 days early, the newest addition to our family arrived. She is Arya Joann Youngren. She was born Sunday, January 18 at 12:45. Even though she was early, she tipped the scale at 8 lbs 4 oz. I was expected a 6lb baby since I did not feel as big as I did with Vance, who was 8lb 13 oz.

So here's a recap of what happened . . .

Jan 12 through 16 was my last week of work. I was teaching photography and took my kids on field trips throughout Whatcom Co. and Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo 4 of the 5 work days. Every day I walked at least 1.5 miles. By Friday, I felt great! And I had lost a couple pounds too.

Saturday afternoon we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese. Big mistake! Ten million people. So we played games for a while, then went to dinner at El Gitano. After we got home, I knew something was just not right. I told Ty we would have a baby tomorrow or Monday. And I started to make a plan for an early morning situation, which included a call to the neighbor to see if he could sit with the kids while one of our parents got here.

Starting at 2am, I could not sleep. I was up at least one an hour. Then at 6am, "Oh this is the part the sucks", I thought to myself as the contractions started. Everyone slept in this morning until 8:30am. At 7:45am, I called Ty's parents to come get the kids and said we would probably need to go when they got there. But when they got there, Ty and Bill had bacon and eggs and a nice 30 minute conversation until Ty looked over and saw me in great pain on the couch. Finally we headed out about 9:20. By this time, I looked at the ditigal clock and noticed the contractions were about 3 minutes apart. That's a little too close. Oh well.

In Triage, they checked me and I was already dialated to 5cm. The nurse looked at me and said, " I see you are in a lot of pain. And since we are not sending you home, let's get you moved". Good idea!

By the time I was moved (wheeled) across the hall, I waited and waited for the "pain guy" to give me an epidorual. He took a long time. Now I was dialated to 8cm. They called the doctor again to see if he was on the way. Once the pain guy hooked me up, life was better--my contractions were "gone" and the labor process slowed.

Once I started to push, it was about 7 big pushes and out she came. The nurse says "And it is a . . . . . . (oh she was about to get my foot in her nose) it's a girl". Thank goodness. No one else had said anything about the sex of the baby.

They put Arya under the heat lamp and she just looked around. No cries.

And the 2nd quarter of the NFC championship was still on. I said "it's not even half time" :)

And now we have another baby in our lives. She is wonderful.