Ava Joy!

Ava Joy was born on Thursday morning at 4:27 a.m. It was an incredible experience bringing her into the world. She is healthy and wonderfully sweet. She weighed 7lb. 8 0z. at birth and was 20.25 inches long. She has medium brown hair, dark blue grey eyes, beautiful pink lips, fair skin and rosy cheeks. She's a gift! We love her soo much!

Our second day home together with daddy in the nursery.

Running Late

Ava is running late in her arrival...working on 4 days now. We're gonna be patient though for the Lord's timing in it all. I know He has the perfect day and hour for her coming. He knows the beginning and the end of our days...how cool!

However...my feet are taking a beating from all this extra baby growth and the 90+ degree weather here in Mobile. Check out the bubble toas and ankles...whoa!

4 More Days...or More

Saturday is the big day...or so we hope. Actually, tomorrow is a full moon. I don't know if there is any truth in the thought that more babies are born on days when the moon is full...we'll see.


Me at 38 weeks...Whoa!

I really think that Ava is very content to hang out for a little longer. I have had no major Braxton Hix contractions, and, other than swollen feet, I don't feel much different than I did a month ago. Shawn is hoping for a very specific arrival time, Saturday afternoon, mainly so he can have the whole week off next week with the baby. I think we are going to start realizing already that babies tend not to follow our schedule. Someone told me that to avoid the anxious countdown, we should continue to schedule things even past the due date so we have something to look forward to besides the baby. So, I have followed that advice and have scheduled to have company come over on Saturday and Sunday at our house. I don't feel too anxious, and feel as prepared as I'm going to be. We will definitely post pictures of our new baby girl when she decides to come.

New Job Title..."Mommy"

Well...the last day of school was Friday. I can no longer carry the job title of "teacher" but from now on...or for the next few years, I'll be known as "mommy." The end of school was bitter-sweet. I was very happy to not have to wake up at 5:00 anymore or to rally 145 students' attention all the time, but I will miss the interaction with most of the students. I really enjoyed chatting and getting to know the students. Most of them are really, really sweet. I thought I was going to cry at graduation, but I didn't. I cried when two of my junior girls came to say good-bye to me the last day of school.



The last day of my senior marine biology class

Only 4 more weeks left...the slow countdown has begun. I'm sure I'll be quite busy in the nesting mode. I have my maternity bag all packed, and I'll be ready to go whenever Ava is ready to come. Shawn and I both are super excited, but almost in disbelief. We were both thinking this week..."We are going to have a baby in our house within 4 weeks! Crazy!"


Top: The cute cake Bethany made for me and Julie's surprise baby shower.
Bottom: Me and Ellen at Fairhope fountain (36 weeks)

6 Weeks Left!!

6 Weeks Left!!! (Me at 34 weeks)

It's hard to believe that we will get to meet our baby girl in only 6 weeks or less! This pregnancy has gone by really, really fast. It has been pretty easy, so far. We are getting the nursery all fixed up and ready for Ava's homecoming. Shawn and I both have definitely been nesting this last trimester. Every spare moment at home is spent working on some type of project.

We took our natural childbirth class in April to get better informed about the whole labor and delivery thing. I am still determined to do it all naturally...not because I'm tough, but because I know that I'll pass out if I have to get an IV or a big shot. Yucky!

Only 2 more weeks left of school, then I can get off my swollen feet and prop them up while reading baby care books. It's going to be a great time before, as one of my friends called it, "hell week." Surely it can't be that crazy bringing home a baby...=)

Here are some pics of the last 6 weeks or so. I have really "blossomed" as the ladies at work keep telling me. =) Is that what they call it?

Me at 28 weeks

Ava Joy!

To all the many folks who check my blog regularly for updates, I apologize for the my blogging slouthfulness. Life is crazy busy, you know! Well...we are proud to announce that we are having a baby girl...Ava Joy. We have had 2 sonograms, one at 19 weeks and the other at 24 weeks. The first sonagram showed a baby girl weighing in at 11 oz. Because she was laying on her tummy, we were unable to see all the heart valves, so they scheduled us for another sonogram. The second one five weeks later revealed that Ava is healthy and growing quickly. She weighed in at 1 pound, 10 oz! Almost a full pound of weight gain in 5 weeks! She is in the 47th percentile for weight and the doctor said she will most-likely be about 7 pounds at birth...just right.

We did have a scare this weekend. We were in a pretty bad car accident driving to Fairhope in the Wallace Tunnel. We hit a truck who had hit another car in front of him. The air bags didn't go off and nobody was hurt. However, I didn't feel Ava moving much after that. We called our mid-wife and she said to make sure she moves within the next hour. Ava decided to take a long nap during that hour, but finally I felt her move after about 45 minutes. It was pretty scary there for a while. We had our first parent stress. I went to the doctor and they monitored Ava's heartrate for about 20 minutes, and all was healthy and clear. Her heartrate was normal and she was moving all about. We are very thankful to the Lord that He protected us during the accident.

I'm entering my last trimester of pregnancy...so far so good. I'm definitely getting bigger and I can't imagine how Ava is going to gain 5 more pounds and still have room! I'm only 5 feet, you know! I'm hoping the last 3 months of school will go by smoothly and quickly with no complications. We are just getting busy getting this nursery ready for our little baby girl, Ava Joy.

The first picture is me at 22 weeks. The second is me at 25 weeks. The last is of the proud, hansome daddy at our favorite place, Fairhope.

The Amazing World Wide Web!

Well...We are now officially almost up-to-date technologically...we now have a digital camera...and we have...finally...the World Wide Web (aka the Internet) in our home now! I know we are a bit behind the times. I can see Shawn and I being one of those older couples that is totally illiterate to the new technology of the day...we will say, "Oh, those...we never use those, we just like the old way of doing it." Oh well.

Well...now that we have the Internet at home, I can more often update this beautiful new blog. We will have some important updates to make since we are now expecting a baby in our family around June 21. We found out we were expecting in September and told everyone immediatly. We are super excited and we find out the gender of the baby at the end of January. I can't wait to start decorating the nursery and buying cute clothes and such.

Even cooler news is that Julie, my college roommate just told us that she is expecting also. She is only 6 weeks behind me and is due at the end of July. We are going to be the "pioneers of parenting" among our college friends...braving the uncharted lands of having and raising babies...woe!