Avery Mae Steenblik

Avery Mae Steenblik entered the world on December 11th 2013 at 4:40pm, weighing 7lbs 14oz and 19 inches in height. Here is her birth story.

I had been having braxton hicks on and off for a couple of weeks and after a couple of times thinking I was in labor and them disappearing when I lay down I was pretty certain this birth would be a repeat of Lucas and end in an induction. I was a firm believer that my babies liked to bake for as long as possible. I was due to be induced on December 13th, but about 2 weeks before that date my Dr. told me they were over booked that day and I had been moved forward to the 12th. This meant Brett had to shuffle his work schedule around a little, but it was no big deal. As the 12th approached we really hoped she would hold off on being born until the 12th, mainly because we had everything planned out nicely with babysitting for Lucas and Brett being off.

The morning of Wednesday the 11th I woke up due to a contraction just as Brett was leaving for his last day of work. I told him about it, not thinking anything of it and he just said "well hold off until 5pm" and laughed.  I tried to go back to sleep, but the contractions kept coming. After about 3 hours my friend Sierra persuaded me to call my Doctor. She was busy and they didn't call me back for over an hour. At this point I had been having regular contractions for over 4 hours and they decided I should get checked out because we live so far from the hospital. I called my visiting teacher and awesome friend Katie and asked her if she could take Lucas and Sierra drove me to the hospital. I called Brett and he left to meet us there. By the time we arrived the contractions were pretty strong and it took them forever to get me checked in because their computer was being slow.

By the time they checked on me I was dialated to a 4 and they moved me straight up to a delivery room. Now I am not shy about the fact that I am all for epidurals. My pain tolerance is low so my biggest fear is not being able to get one. UMC is a teaching school which is no big deal to me, but the anesthesiologist could NOT get the epidural in, it took him about 45 minutes and my contractions were getting very strong. His teacher was called in to help him, but did not take over which really made me mad. By the time it was finally in I was dialated to a 9 and they had my Dr. come in for delivery. 3 sets of 3 pushes later Avery Mae entered the world.

Her birth weight and height were exactly the same as mine.

She is named after Brett's Grandma and Great-Grandma. Avery was his Great-grandma's maiden name, and her daughter's (Brett's Grandma's) middle name is Mae.

She was a newborn clone of her big brother other than she had more and much darker hair than him.

Also like Lucas she was very calm when she was born, just taking it all in. 

A perfect snap of my babies together.

Avery's delivery was much faster and easier than Lucas' which was a huge blessing. I only had to stay one night in the hospital which I was grateful for. We are so in love with our Christmas Angel!

Stay tuned for some professional hospital and newborn pictures taken by my amazing friend Christine at Sweet Afton Studios