Audrey Jean was born at 2:12 PM, Thursday 2/2/2006. The birth was extremely fast actually. We went in for scheduled induction at 7 AM (too bad it wasn't until 8AM but the extra hour of time alone with Mom was fun), they put Ann on Pitosin and epidural and both Mom and Dad took naps on and off. Around 1:30 PM, Ann started feeling a 'little uncomfortable' (in her words). By quarter to 2, she said she was ready to push and told me to get the nurses. Next thing I know, Audrey is there. Literally probably 2-3 minutes of pushing if that. I think everyone was surprised at how fast it went - especially Audrey. Whatever 'scores' they do for children, Audrey's first minute was 'bad' - scoring only 5 out of 10.

As I was going over to film the 'cleaning up' part of the baby, I could see she wasn't breathing and starting to turn blue :O, not to mention the shoulder distocia which she got and her left arm looked limp and pretty pathetic, and I could see urgency in doctor's actions which made me nervous enough to not start recording until I figured out what was going on, but Audrey came around and the second minute of her life was much better scoring 8 out of 10. Obviously breathing ;) and moving her arm a 'bit'. It was still weak, but doctors weren't concerned about it - they did xray it last night and didn't find anything to be alarmed about. I hit the 'record' button finally. I was told that basically 10 is impossible and 9 is highest they'd ever give. So I was satisfied with Audrey's score of 8.

Then the doctor found out that there was still some placenta in Ann and she was 'bleeding out' some. Luckily they caught it early and were able to fix the issue, although Ann lost more blood than normal/desired, so for the next several hours, she was 'battling' passing out and light headed-ness (never passed out, just on verge a couple times).

So in between helping Ann, we discovered that Audrey was having a hard time keeping her temperature up and her blood sugar levels were low. Which in turn made her tired and therefore prevented her from eating even though eating was supposedly the cure for this (déjà vu anyone?). So we had to constantly 'piss Audrey off' to wake her up and then try to feed her. Too bad, she gets her sleeping habits from her Grandpa Aney, cause this girl could sleep through an earth quake, it was almost comical. Even when they were doing blood tests and poking her for blood, she'd cry a bit and before the band aid was even put on, she was sleeping again.

Finally at 9PM we were moving up to our room - Ann was still wheezy, tired, anxious, and whatever other feelings go with birth that a man can't comprehend, and Audrey was off to level-2 nursery so they could monitor blood sugar because she couldn't maintain it. Josh was just showing up to the hospital now for the first time to see Mom all day and obviously Audrey for the first time. I took him back to level-2 nursery and they were putting in a feeding tube in Audrey's nose and she was understandably crying. So for the rest of the night and all the way up until now (just put Josh down for nap at 2PM) Josh goes into his rhythmic chants several times a day...Au-dee...ky...Au-dee...ky (Audrey, cry). Hate to know how he's going to deal with it when she comes home and really cries ;)

Anyway, other than Josh desperately missing Mommy last night after seeing her (so much so that he worked himself up to vomiting), everyone is doing well. Ann is over her lightheaded-ness and just trying to catch up on sleep. Dad and Josh are at home doing Daddy-Daycare and Audrey is doing a lot of sleeping. She is still being supplemented with sugar water to help with blood sugars, but the doctors/nurses aren't showing any signs of concern so that is what I believe as well (hopefully I'm not too trusting).

I snapped just a couple pictures yesterday, you can see them in the Welcome little angel... photo gallery - I'll put up some video later. Audrey definitely has the same chubby cheeks Josh did and looks fairly like him, except for the major cone-head Josh got due to 4 hours of pushing in that labor versus Audrey's 5 minutes. I guess if you average them out, 2 hours of pushing per birth isn't that bad is it? At least not for me, God bless Ann and God bless God for not making men have kids ;)