Story of Ashlyn's Arrival

Here is Ashlyn's birth announcement. My day July 8th started very normal. I was dropping off my kids at the Lingards who have been my wonderful babysitters throughout this pregnancy. I was crossing my fingers I was finally progressed past 1 cm so that perhaps I could get induced the next day. I went in and I was 2 cm and clocked in my 2nd high blood pressure reading back to back and reported some sharp pains on my upper right side. All this equated to okay we are a go to induce this baby. The doctor walks out to call my hospital to schedule me. She walks back in and says it's gotta be 2 pm TODAY or we can't get you in before the weekend. TODAY was very overwhelming but doable so after some phone calls it was a go. I rushed around for a couple of hours and we went to the hospital to have our baby. They didn't get things really started until between 4 and 5 pm. Then around 6 pm I got an epidural and I was very concerned about how it would go this time....IT WAS AWESOME!! Getting my epidural was more painful then the contractions I was having at that time but each time they came in and pumped up the contraction medicine I was so glad I couldn't feel it. I was even concerned that my contractions were still doing anything. It got to be 9 o'clock and I wasn't progressing much and I was starting to think this was going to take into the next morning. When I was checked at 10 o'clock though my progress was very good and I was very quickly reporting that I felt pressure. If Tom talked to me throughout the pressure I was fine and soon reported I could feel her head coming. The doctor got ready and two pushes later Ashlyn Lee was in my arms at 10:52 pm.

She was so happy to hear my voice and she just seemed so happy. She breastfeed immediately and had no troubles getting her fill. My milk came in before she was even 24 hours old and she did a great job eating.

Olivia and Dylan were brought the next morning by Papa and Grammy Lee. Dylan came into the hospital room first and said "Where's my baby?" Once he saw her he said "Let's go home baby!" Sadly we had to tell Dylan that Mommy and baby sister would not be going home with them that day. Olivia wanted to hold her as soon as possible. They gave sister presents, held her, and kissed her many times over. The first time she cried Dylan covered her mouth to "shh" her. Olivia is just a little mother to her and wants to hold her every possible opportunity.

We were doing so good we headed home the next afternoon. I didn't want to go another night in the hospital where Ashley and I were being checked so often we couldn't get any good sleep. We hoped we could get better sleep at home.