Avery Berlyn Schmidt

Hi everyone,
As most of you have heard, Avery made her way into this world a little earlier than expected. She was born on Friday September 5th 2008 at 6:23 am at 36 weeks. Wes and I had just returned from our first, and I guess last, birthing class at the hospital. I have having some contractions, like I had been for days, that were 7 minutes apart during the class. Halfway through the class they sort of went away in frequency and were gone when we got home. I crawled into bed and fell asleep. Five minutes later my water broke and we were out the door in 10 minutes. On the way to the hospital my contractions started and they were two minutes apart lasting for a whole minute each. The pain was out of control by the time we reached the hospital. I think this is because they were so close together I didn't have time to recover from one before another came. When we got there I was so thankful to see the same wonderful nurse who took care of me on Monday night. She was wonderful and started to get things moving right away. She checked me and I was 2 cms. I then received my epidural, oh what a wonderful thing. An hour later I was 4 cms. I then tried to rest, but the excitement and nervousness had set in. Two hours later she checked me and I was a nine!!!!! I couldn't believe how fast it went. We waited another hour for the baby to drop to start pushing. After a pretty short hour, Avery arrived! It was a very surreal experience and one I will never forget. We were able to bring her home yesterday which was so exciting considering she is a month early. We are doing great just really tired. She is not feeding that well, but normal for being a month early. She is looking very jaundice already, so we are going to see her pediatrician today. We will keep you all posted with new pics when we take some. Thanks to you all for your prayers and support. We can't wait for you all to meet her. She is such a joy in our lives.