Suprise!!!! She's Here!

At just 36 weeks our baby girl has made an early debut. Avery Laikyn Henderson entered the world via c-section on Thursday June 21st at 9:04 am weighing 6 lbs 10.3 oz and 19 inches long. She didn't have any issues breathing on her own so thankfully a ventillator was not required. They did have to suction her one more time during the day but she did amazing for a preterm baby. (Apparently girls do better than boys) She also got great APGAR scores. She is a little peanut in comparison to Garrett who was over a pound and a half bigger at birth. And she definitally looks like a Cardullo. (If you have never seen one, trust me... you have now!) She does have Garrett's feet and Brandon's ears though. Garrett is completely in love with his baby sister and decided that we should keep her!

And now for her birthstory. I awoke at 1:50 am on Wednesday morning with strong contractions. They lingered all through the night and finally at 7:40 am I called labor and delivery. I had to chart my contractions and drink lots of water for the next hour but I still had 10 contractions so they instructed me to come in and get checked out. Brandon was in Memphis on deployment so thankfully we have family close and Joanne and Barry were able to take me to the hospital while Kimberly and Tommy stayed with Garrett who was still snoozing when I left. I spent the next couple of hours on the monitors and the contractions continued. And they checked me and I was 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. So they decided to keep me overnight for observation and pump me full of fluids to see if the contractions were being caused my dehydration. Well that spaced them out but they never stopped and then they started in a pattern again. Brandon drove all the way to the hospital from Memphis and made it in around midnight to stay with me. Avery's heartrate dipped 3 times in the night so the following morning the OB came in and told me that she would feel very uncomfortable sending me home because she didn't know the cause for the contractions. She was concerned that maybe there was a placental problem or that my previous incision site was coming apart and causing the contractions. So she thought it best to take the baby that morning. So we were wheeled back in for surgery. Apparently my the scar tissue from my last csection had completely affixed my uterus to my abdominal muscle so when the dr's got in there to take Avery out they had no idea what they were looking at. They couldn't identify any of my organs so mission #1 was to get her out ASAP and then they worked on me for the next hour. Both dr's were very thankful that this was not an emergency c section or else it would have been pretty bad with my adhesions. But when all is said and done the surgery went fine and we have a beautiful healthy baby girl. I have less pain this time than I did with Garrett. We were dischared yesterday because I was doing so well and since I have been through this before they felt like I could go! Enjoy the pictures of our baby girl. We are busy soaking her in and being a little family of 4!