Flashbacks

I will try to do an update to cover the past three months.

Gavin & Avery doing family pics

Avery first time in bouncy seat

Gavin holding Avery

My kiddos!

Videos when my Aunt Carol and Mom were visiting. First one with Gavin on the playground with Carol. Second one is Gavin helping Carol carry stuff out to the car when they drove her to the airport.

We did a newborn photo shoot about a week after Avery was born. Here are some of those pictures.

New family pic!

Family pic with Grandma & Aunt Carol

Grandma with her new granddaughter and G

Gavin giving Avery some love

Mommy & daughter pic

Big brother!

Little girl

Baby toes!

Sweet baby girl

Holding baby sis

Trying out activity mat for 1st time

Big brother showing her how

Bedtime stories

Sleeping beauty

1 month!

Check out those cheeks!

Official birth announcement pic

Mommy/daughter pic

Snuggling with Daddy!

Enjoying the outdoors

Trying Mommy's hat

Caterpillar!

Bumbo seat reunion

Cheesy grin

Gavin got a balance bike and has been practicing on it intermittently. Here's a brief video...

Here's another video of Gavin at swimming lessons. Hard to tell in the video but I do not have my hands on him at any point - he was able to kick across most of the pool on his own!

2 month pic!

Cool batman bandaid & Avery photobomb

Daddy/daughter pic

One of Gavin's favorite games with Avery - baby chasing!!

Here is Avery enjoying her activity mat on 8.16 - she has really plumped up!

First time G got his own cone! It ended up on the ground

Daddy/daughter

I recently took Gavin and Avery to Gillette Castle where we met up with a college friend of mine! LJ!! I didn't get a chance to take many pics...

G in front of castle

Inside main room ground floor

Cool doors!

His safe

Back of castle

Caitlyn, LJ's eldest daughter

3 months!

Reading baby!

Avery loves her burp cloth! This video is in hyperlapse, so it's more entertaining!

Real time video of Avery enjoying her burp cloth. I remember Gavin loving his too!

That's all the updates I have for now. Avery continues to grow. She has really good head control now and is very alert, always wanting to see what's going on around her. Gavin still loves to cuddle with her. He has gotten very good at building with legos and still enjoys his swimming lessons. We are starting a "Create & Move" class in September, so we will see how he enjoys art! We are keeping busy!!

Baby Girl Has Arrived!

If you have Facebook, you may have seen my post about how ready I was to have the baby and be done with pregnancy a couple weeks ago! So on the night of May 22nd (or morning since it was 12:45am), my water broke. I started having contractions pretty quickly afterwards but they were irregular, so I figured I had some time. In case you didn't know, when your water breaks it continues to leak for awhile, so I spent a good amount of time sitting on the toilet waiting for that to stop. Then I decided I should collect my toiletries for my hospital bag so I would be ready to go. In the midst of gathering my things, Carlton woke up asking what was going on. I told him my water had broken and I was having contractions. At that time it was already 2:30am! I didn't realize so much time had already passed. So he called the on call doctor and asked if we could labor at home for a while since the contractions were several minutes apart still. They asked us to come in around 7am...but about 15 minutes later they called back and asked us to come in right away because I had a c-section with my previous pregnancy and was going for a vaginal birth this time, so they didn't want to risk anything going wrong. We called our friend, Jessica Schecter, who came over to stay at the house with Gavin while we went to the hospital. By the time we gathered everything up and got to the hospital, it was about 4:30am and my contractions were coming more regularly and about 3 minutes apart. 
Our doula met us at the hospital and it took us about 30 minutes to get from the emergency entrance to the labor and delivery department on the 4th floor because I kept having to stop and breathe through a contraction. It took another 30 minutes before I was able to get into the bed to be hooked up to the fetal monitor and have the doctor check my cervix. I was dilated 4cm at 5:30am. The contractions were definitely coming more frequently at that point! I had planned to labor in the birthing tub and wanted to try nitrous oxide for pain relief but we didn't have time for either one! I was on my hands and knees in the bed for awhile and the nurse checked and said I was dilated 9cm - this was only about 45 minutes later! So they had me get onto my back again into a semi-seated position. I vaguely remember the doctor coming back in the room and the nurse, Danielle, coaching me on the pushing. She had worked in a birthing center, so she was very helpful during my labor & delivery! I got to feel the top of her head as she crowned although I didn't see her come out. I was a little too preoccupied with the pushing. A couple times I had to stop pushing and told them the urge to push wasn't there even though they were thinking I could get her out. But after only about 20 minutes of pushing, she came out screaming! I had gone from 4cm to 10 cm in about an hour (normally women dilate 1cm per hour). Avery Nicole Brinda was born on May 22nd at 6:32am! They put her right on my chest for immediate skin to skin contact and our doula was able to get some pictures! The doctor also showed us the placenta, which was interesting to see!!

Danielle (blonde) coaching me on my pushing

Here she comes!

Making her arrival known!

Danielle congratulating me

Proud Daddy!!

Placenta!

Keeping Avery warm

Official birth weight 6 lbs 8.5 oz

Now we are a family of 4!

G meeting his sister for the first time!

Ms. Jessica meeting Avery!

First sponge bath

Sponge bath

It was a long night!!

Grammy Wheeler meets Avery!

Great Aunt Carol meets Avery!

Everyone got to enjoy baby girl's company!

Grammy Wheeler and Aunt Carol flew in late in the afternoon on May 22nd, so they were just in time to meet Avery on her birth day! I was worried she might come a week late which would have meant that Carol would have missed meeting her. But Avery made her appearance just in time!

Still Waiting...

Baby girl has not made any signs of wanting to come yet, unfortunately. But we have been keeping busy! Carlton and Gavin did a 5k on the base last Saturday and took 5th place! Carlton was the first one to cross the finish line pushing a stroller. I decided to walk part of it and did about 2.5 miles total...at 38 weeks pregnant.

On the first of May, we went to a community fair where Gavin got to try a bounce house for the first time, pretend to drive a recycling truck, and got tattoos!

Vision & Hulk

Here are updated bumpie photos:

And just about 2 weeks ago, we did a maternity photo shoot at the Connecticut College Arboretum. We just got the pictures the other day, so here is a peek at some of them!