The Big Day: Ava's Birth

At 8am, I went back to the operating room to get my spinal block as Jason anxiously waited outside in the hallway. After about 15-20 minutes, Jason was able to come into the operating room with me and everyone got prepared to begin. The room was completely silent so the doctor requested some music to be turned on.  The anesthesiologist turned on some music for us, and the first song played was Train's "Marry Me". Jason and I both looked at each other and immediately thought "how perfect is this?!?!" That particular song has always been special to us from the first moment we heard it at our friends Rene' and Brandon's wedding. At the time Jason and I were still just dating and I fell so in love with the song, that I would always tease Jason that it would be the PERFECT song to play when he proposed to me. Lucky for me, he found a MUCH better, creative way to propose to me....you can read about it here.

About 10 minutes into the surgery, I started feeling nauseous. At first I tried to be strong and not say anything. I kept thinking, surely I won't get sick, surely I won't get sick (if I kept saying it enough, it would become true, right?). I wasn't sick the ENTIRE pregnancy, not even once, how can I get sick on the operating table?!? Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, I decided to say something. Luckily the anesthesiologist was right by my side and immediately gave me some super fast acting anti nausea medicine. I decided to find a focal point on the ceiling and just focus on not getting sick. Thankfully, I was able to hold it altogether and not get sick.  About this time, Ava made her big debut.

She was such a great baby, she didn't even come out screaming. :) Jason and I both immediately fell in love with her, even more so than we already had.  :)

I LOVE this picture and how you can still tell he is grinning from ear to ear, even behind his mask. He is one proud daddy! :)

 

At this point, Jason kept trying to show her to me, but I was still needing to keep my "focal point" to not get sick, so the two of them were able to have some special bonding time as I got stapeled/stitched back up.

Jason took some really good videos with his phone of the nurse doing all of Ava's first newborn check ups. I am so thankful that he was able to take these videos because I had no idea what was going on over there while I still had to keep my focal point. :)

Here is a sweet video of our lil princess getting her newborn measurements:

On that video, you can see her huge umbilical cord...they left it a lil long on purpose, so Jason could have the memorable moment of cutting it. When you have a csection, the dads aren't able to cut the cord during the surgery, so this was the best alternative for us. He was able to cut it right before her first sponge bath.

Here is a short video of the nurse listening to Ava's heartbeat and Ava trying so hard to open her eyes for the first time...

We LOVE listening to her sweet, lil cry and could listen to it all day! One of the things we noticed and loved was how quickly she was able to soothe herself after she let out a cry.

The last song to play before we left the operating room was another one of our (including Brayden) favorite Train songs "Hey Soul Sister"....we thought that was the perfect upbeat song to conclude the birth of our healthy baby girl. :)

After the surgery, we were able to head back to our room and Brayden was introduced to his baby sister for the first time...he was SOOO excited and so in love with her too!