Meet Avery Owen

Here he is, Avery Owen Hunsaker!
Born Wed. Dec. 1, 2004 at 6:16am (13 days overdue! I was scheduled the very next day to be induced!)
8 pounds 3 ounces, 21 inches


First bath


with greasy mom


Day 2


Day 3 time to go home! Mmm, what's that, oooh, finger...


HEY, give me back that finger!


So here's the story:
Pregnant women typically go through a nesting phase, often in the time before the baby is going to be born. I don't think I really did that. Then, Tue. Nov. 30th, 12 days after my due date, I just could not go to sleep. (Meanwhile, I've been dilated to a 4 since 2 weeks before my due date and still Avery waited). Finally, I got out of bed at midnight determined to make some bread in the bread machine to be ready when Travis got up for work in the morning. I think this was my last moment nesting instinct. I got back to bed after 1am and figure I fell asleep about 1:30am.

At 3:10am I woke up with a pain. It was a contraction and I had one every 10 minutes after that. On the fourth contraction at 3:40 Travis finally woke up. He helped me time them from there and slowly they got longer and more frequent. I remember being told that (especially with the first pregnancy) the contractions needed to be 1 minute long and coming every 5 minutes and they need to be that regular for an hour before you even think about coming in. We weren't quite that regular yet when suddenly I had a contraction that just didn't stop. As far as I'm concerned, contractions can be gotten through because you know you just have to hold out a little longer and that one will be over. So when I had a contraction and a minute went by with no let up, and then two minutes, it was really getting unbearable waiting for it to end. That contraction lasted a solid TEN minutes. It was unbelievable. After that the contractions only lasted a minute a piece, but there were coming every TWO minutes. Minute on, minute off. Oh, crap, it's time to go! Having only a minute respite between contractions made getting out of the house so stilted. Get my pants and socks on. Okay stop. Hobble to the front door. Okay stop. Hobble to the car. Okay stop. Get in the car and GO GO GO!

I was delivering out in Silverton, OR which was about a 35 minute drive on a typical, traffic cooperates day-time drive. Assuming that amount of time, we were at the 10 minute mark crossing over I-5 when I could feel Avery coming out! Instead of getting to push, I had to put all my energy into holding that sucker in. Here he makes me wait 13 days after his due date, and now he doesn't want to give me any time to get to the hospital! So it's a good thing it was way early in the morning and no traffic so Travis could blow lights and drive ~80 miles an hour or Avery would have been delivered on the street. Seriously. If that had taken place during the day, there is no possible way we would have made it.

So we get to the hospital and I think the nurses can see from my condition that they don't need to stop me in a check up room, they took me straight back to a labor/delivery/recovery room. Except then the idiot nurses wanted me to take a urine sample. Are you kidding me? But they insisted and I said fine, because I didn't have the energy to argue. I had to have help into the room and upon starting to squat a big chunk of the amniotic sac fell out. What?! Ugh. I guess with delivery it disengages and in my case it decided to slip out, but my water still hadn't broken. So the idiot nurses decide I don't have to pee after all. They check me and discovery I'm dilated to a 10. One nurse looks at the other, saying, "she's already a 10, what do we do?" Seriously, did you just say that in front of me?!!!? The other nurse said to call an ER doc immediately. Well, no, duh, I've been trying to tell you he's coming out. So the ER doc comes and breaks my bag of waters that's been hanging disgustingly out of me. And then my regular doc showed up. Props to him for getting to the hospital in only 10 minutes from being called! He was just in time to catch too. Well, not quite. I was still frozen in the hold-him-in-at-all-costs mode from the drive that the Dr. had to coax me into pushing instead of holding. "Laurie, he's right there, it's okay to push now." Three pushes later and I had a little Avery Owen. We had only been in the hospital for about 15 minutes. And obviously I had zero opportunity for any drugs. So from the start at 3:10am to a 6:16am delivery, it was great having a short labor. However, I do not recommend the stress of possibly not making it to the hospital. I do not recommend 10 minute long contractions. Also, no drugs=a lot of pain.

And most importantly, I do not recommend fighting the natural course of labor and delivery. Holding against the contractions like that and trying to hold Avery in was incredibly detrimental to my recovery. First deliveries are typically harder recoveries than later deliveries because it's such a systemic shock that first time, but I used so much energy in fighting it that I was absolutely wasted for days. I'm adding this last part of the story after I've had Carson and Emmett too, so I can compare the recovery to them. It was a phenomenal difference. Only a few hours after Carson and Emmett I could shower no problem on my own. It took a lot longer for me to have enough energy after Avery to even get myself to the bathroom without help and fear of fainting.

So after only about an hour and a half of sleep, I delivered Avery and then family showed up, so it was a while before I got to sleep. Eventually we had to kick people out so I could nap. Remember the bread I set the bread machine to make? I was not happy about missing my fresh bread, so I made my mother-in-law pick it up and bring it to the hospital with her (or else!)

So that's the story of Mr. A and how he wanted come in his own time but when he decided it was time, look out, here he comes!