This song will always hold special meaning to me. In the hospital that we delivered in they have a photographer that will take pictures for you! She showed us our slide show of pictures with this song. It was during that slide show seeing pictures of our beautiful girl that I realized how much I was head over heels in love with her....The tears were flowing and the emotions were overwhelming. Ryan's eyes filled as well making it that much more emotional. I'm still unable to get through this song without crying thinking of that moment.....lol
Miss Ayela Kathleen Ballard
Our greatest gift<3
Although life as a new mamma has been a little crazy and a huge adjustment there is about 5 things I should be doing while little miss princess is sleeping. I wanted to get this down before it turns into a blur or I forget details that I want to remember.....so here it goes!
May 26th while finishing up my last day of work, I noticed an increase of braxton hick contractions. Throughout the day they started to become more consistent and a little stronger. I still didn't think much of it, I thought It was probably false labor. When I got home I started to time the "cramps" finally realizing they were contractions and a good 10min apart. I've had a ton of people explain to me what contractions feel like and I guess I just thought they would feel different. To me a contraction is best explained as a giant charley horse in your stomach! NOT FUN! Finally realizing that this could be the real deal, Ryan and I decided we needed to do what we could to really get things moving! It was a rainy evening so we decided to go walk around target, we got some last minute items for the hospital and of course a cute romper for Ayela. Towards the end of our shopping trip the contractions were beginning to stop me in my tracks.
With the pain of each contraction was excitement! We were going to meet our little girl sooner than later! When we got home we decided to play some Mario Kart and see what would happen. It was so hard to tell if I was progressing because for a half an hour my contractions would be 5min apart than the next hour they would be 10min apart. I was in pain but at that point I wasn't sure how high my pain tolerance was. Around 10pm I told Ryan to get some sleep, I attempted to lay down with him several times, but the pain of each contraction would throw me out of bed and take my breath away! Around 12pm I decided to call my doctor. Of course she told me that my contractions needed to be closer together and I shouldn't be able to talk through them before going to the hospital. I continued to labor until 6am when I told Ryan we needed to start getting ready to leave.
Laboring at home was extremely stressful for me, because we were a good 45min away from the hospital that we were planning on delivering at! I was so scared we were going to get there and they were going to send me home because I wasn't progressed enough to be in "active labor" and by the time we would get back to our place I would feel like it was time to go again. Not to mention it was Memorial weekend and traffic in Denver was going to be horrible! But I was done with the pain.
Once we got to the hospital I was at 3cm dilated and 80% effaced, the nurse said that we needed to walk around for an hour and see if I could make any progress before admitting me. I'll tell you right now I was a laboring/waddling pregnant women on a mission. After an hour of walking she hooked me up to monitor my contractions again and said "okay we want these contraction closer together" and left the room. Watching the screen I could see that my contractions were still about every 6-7min apart. I started to panic telling Ryan we were going to get sent home!!! When she came in the room, she said "okay they are still pretty far apart but lets check you" . To my surprise.....thank god I was now at 4cm and made enough progress to get admitted!!
The nurse suggested getting into the jet tub and putting on some aroma therapy. I'll tell ya right now that certainly took the edge off for about a good hour. Once I got out I knew it was time for the epidural. I listened to a piece of advice my mom has given me several times. "Ask for the epidural before the pain makes you feel like you want to die/cry" haha. I'm SOOO glad that I did because the I was the second epidural for the anesthesiologist out of the 10 new admits who he said were going to have to wait awhile.
An epidural is a beautiful thing. After that it was the waiting game until 10pm when it was time to push. My doctor had 3 of us "pregnant ladies" ready to push at the same time! After I did one practice push my nurse dialed the doctor and said "looks like we go a good pusher" lol the doctor came in and within 6min and 2 pushes. She was out.
Ayela Kathleen Ballard was born at 10:22pm on May 27th 2016, weighing in at 6pounds 8oz and 19in long! She was so alert and such a tiny little thing!
Ayela Kathleen Ballard was born at 10:22pm on May 27th 2016, weighing in at 6pounds 8oz and 19in long! She was so alert and such a tiny little thing!
I don't think you are ever really prepared for the moment you see your baby for the first time. It's a moment that will forever be ingrained in my mind and was completely life changing! She is so perfect and such a sweet baby!The love felt for this sweet little girl is truly overwhelming....
