Elephant rolls

Bradan is getting some fat (aka elephant rolls) on him! He was so skinny when he was born that it is good to see and have to wash beneath those skin rolls. Here are a couple of pictures of him from this past week.

Will you push me on my swing?

That is Shelby's favorite question since Daddy and Grandpa got her swing set done. She asks at 7 in the morning until 9 at night. We have been working on her swinging herself but she goes so much higher when we push her. When we had bought the swing set we figured Shelby would be all about the slide and towers. Although she does like to pretend that she is a princess in her "castle", she loves the swing. This is where we will be spending most of our summer!

All they do is spoil and then leave

Over the last two weeks, both sets of grandparents have had the opportunity to come spoil both of our children. Stu's parents had already had the tickets to come up here for Shelby's birthday for months, they just didn't know that they would be meeting their grandson at this time also. After my mom being here for a week and a half helping us with Shelby while I was on bed rest and no baby when she left, Dad decided he better get her out here as soon as he could to see the little one. For those of you that don't know, our two children are the first and only grandchildren on both sides. (Now would be the time I need to hint about my huge want to be an aunt soon to Craig and Jessica, Katie and Dustin)

Here are the first pictures of the grandparents with both of their grandchildren.

2 Weeks Old

Bradan will be 2 weeks old tomorrow (on Shelby's 3rd birthday). He went to the doctor today where he weighed 7 lbs. 0 oz. and measured 20 inches long. The poor child also got circumcised today which I know is harder on his parents, especially his dad, than on him. Hopefully, it will be a fast recovery :).
Here are some pictures of him from the last few days.

All about Shelby

The Birthday Girl

Shelby is turning 3 on Wednesday May 20th so this blog is all about her. For her birthday, we bought her a swing set for the back yard and threw her a princess party on Sunday. Below are the pictures for both events.

Preparing the yard for the swing set
With Stu's parents up here for a couple of days, Stu decided to have his Dad help him with all the prep work he needed to do for the swing set. That included renting a sod cutter to tear up some grass, extending the playground that was already there, leveling the ground with sand and putting down landscaping fabric. As you can see by the pictures, Shelby thought her big sand box was great!!

The play area cleared and being leveled

Shelby having a ball in the sand


The play area ready for the swing set to be built

She was exhausted

Princess Party

As you know, Shelby is big into princesses so the theme for her 3rd birthday was of course Princess. We told her little friends that they had to come wearing their best princess attire. They had an afternoon of games and fun at our house. Games they played were putting the shoe on Cinderella, popping balloons and breaking the pinata. They also had a great time blowing bubbles, driving Shelby's mustang and playing on what was done with the swing set. The cake Shelby had was one that she had been wanting at Albertsons for the last 6 months. Every time we went in there, we heard "Can we get my princess cake?" Overall it was a great birthday party.

THE Princess Cake

Putting Cinderella's shoe on

Popping balloons

Hitting the pinata

Playing on what was done of the swing set

Keep watching for the finished swing set!

Pictures from the first week

Eyes Wide Open
Bradan has been home with us for almost a week and we are adoring him. He is eating, sleeping, pooping and peeing which is everything you want a newborn to do. So far he is a pretty easy going baby. Fusses only when he is hungry and is pretty content the rest of the time. He even puts up with big sister kissing and hugging him all the time. He went to the doctor yesterday where he weighed 6lbs. 10 oz. so he is almost back up to his birth weight. Here are some pictures we took the other day of him with his eyes open.

First Bath
On Monday we gave Bradan his first bath. We figured he would scream his head off like Shelby did for her first bath but nope he fell asleep. I put a picture up of Bradan and Shelby taking their first baths so you can see the difference in our two kids so far (or is it a difference in our ease of parenting so far?)

Sleeping Bradan

Screaming Shelby

Mommy and Shelby Time
Shelby asked for her toenails and fingernails to be painted so we spent some quality/much needed time together doing so. She is so proud of her beautiful nails. It goes along well with her whole love of pretending like she is a princess.

It is good to be home!

Shelby said it best Saturday morning. She stayed the night Friday at the hospital with us and we gave her the choice to go to dance on Saturday morning knowing that Stu would have plenty of time to take her and then come back to get Bradan and I. Her reply was "I just want to go home with my family." And that's just what she did when we were discharged from the hospital that morning.
Our weekend was us starting to adjust to our new normal. We worked on projects around the house that we had planned on getting to before Bradan was born and just relaxed as a family.
Bradan is doing great. He is eating, sleeping and pooping - everything that you want a newborn to do. Shelby is adjusting to her baby brother. She is learning what she can and can't do with him but is enjoying giving him lots of hugs and kisses.
Here are just some pictures that were taken this weekend. Thank you again for all the thoughts and wishes that were sent our way.

Proud Big Sister and Happy Little Boy

Things have been going very well in the past day with Bradan. He is eating great and even letting Quinn get some sleep here and there.
I took Shelby home with me last night so she could sleep in her own bed. She had a great time at the Fundane'ts over the past couple days, but she needed a night at home. Quinn managed great on her own last at the hospital.
My friend Cliff and his girlfriend's son Chip stayed with us last night. We went out for breakfast this morning then got the Mustang loaded up on his trailer for the haul back to California. It was good to catch up, even if we didn't have the opportunity to hang out that much. He left before lunch and should be making it to Stockton in the early AM tomorrow.
Shelby and I made it to the hospital around 1pm and Shelby was again excited to see her baby brother. He is looking and doing great, eating regularly and sleeping in between. He has even gone through several diapers. We are looking forward to bring him home tomorrow. It will be nice to get things back to normal.

DAY ONE WITH BRADAN

Bradan has met and exceeded all of our expectations so far. He has good color, can maintain his own temperature and has been eating well.
Quinn fed him this morning after the pediatrician took a look at him and he took very well. Since then, she has been able to take him from the nursery into the room for feedings every 2-1/2 hours.
I picked Shelby up at daycare today around 1130am. She was very excited about the arrival her baby brother. We made it to the hospital around 2pm. So far, Shelby has been very good with her baby brother and is already "helping out". She was also glad to see her mom up and around. When Shelby need to go to the potty, Quinn asked her if she needed any help. Shelby's reply was: "You can get up? You can help me?" She is glad to have her mom back and the little brother is icing on the cake.
If he continues to do well, he should be able to stay in our room tonight. If they have any concerns, he will stay in the nursery and they will bring him in at three hour intervals. We hope that they allow him to stay with us tonight. If he is anything like Shelby was, he will start getting vocal by midnight.
It looks like we should be able to bring him home on Saturday if everything continues in this direction. Quinn will likely be discharged tomorrow and they will give us a room for Friday night. We will take the next few days to get adjusted as a family and then my parents come out on Wednesday night.
To add a little excitement, my good friend Cliff Clark came up from California today with my Ranchero and he is taking back a Mustang that I decided to sell him. Like we have said before, Bradan does not like us to make any plans.
Quinn, Shelby and I would like to give a lot of thanks to the well wishes over the past couple weeks. It has been an ordeal that was well worth it (even Quinn thinks so).

Our Sweet "BEA"

Introducing Bradan Edward Avery

Born 5-6-09
6 lbs. 11 oz.
18 1/4 inches long

It is hard to believe he was 4 weeks early with those statistics.

The newest addition to the Avery family was born at 10:56 pm yesterday. Just like Stuart wrote the day before, I was started on the pitocin around 4 am yesterday morning. I had slight contractions but when the nurse checked my cervix at 3 pm, I had not changed at all since that morning. I was put on the highest dosage of pitocin allowed at that time and they were talking about getting me off the pitocin and redoing the cervadill if I had not made any changes soon. Not what I wanted at all. My doctor came in about 7 and checked my cervix which had dillated to almost 3 and contractions were getting stronger. Talk about a relief knowing that I was not doing a practice round of contractions but it was the real deal. We decided at the time to not break my water due to the risk of infection and knowing that there was not a lot of fluid there anyway. Well, my water broke an hour later and the next 2 hours, labor progressed very fast. Around 10 I was wanting to push and by 10:20, Dr. Hebard was ready and I was pushing. He came into this world at 10:56.
He didn't cry right away but after working with him for about 5 minutes and giving him some oxygen Bradan let us know he was here. After Stu and I got to hold him for awhile, they brought him down to the nursery. Stu went with him and watched as they performed all the newborn tests. Everything has checked out fine so far. After me recovering for an hour and eating, I was able to go down to the nursery and spend more time with him. Stu and I came back to our room were we both had a decent night sleep.
Stuart went to check on him this morning and he is doing great. No problems last night, he slept and even ate. Dr. Cogley, who is Shelby's pediatrican, will be checking him over this morning and giving us her thoughts on how long he will be staying here. I will hopefully begin nursing him this morning and get to keep him in my room. And as for me, my recovery process is doing great.
Stuart will be going to get his big sister later this morning so she can meet him. I am pretty excited for her chance to meet her baby brother.
As for the name, his middle name comes from Stu's grandpa who passed away when Stu was about 8 years old. Bradan is a name that I have always liked but Stu didn't. About 3 months ago, he changed his mind and I got my way.

What Happened to the Plan?

This little guy does not like us to make any plans what so ever.
I say that because we had began to expect that everything was stabilized and we would not have to induce until this weekend or early next week. Well, that all changed today. Quinn's fluid levels showed a drop this morning. The AFI showed a level of 6.2 yesterday and it went below 5 today, which was the "line-in-sand" the doctors had gave us. Because of that, they have decided to induce Quinn into labor tonight. They have already put her on Cervadill and that will last for the next 12 hours. They will introduce pitocin around 4AM tomorrow which will get things moving. They expect she will deliver tomorrow or Thursday.
I went back to work today expecting to get nearly a week in, showing a presence on my new project. But I guess the little one doesn't what to get out of the spotlight yet.
All and all, we are relieved. It has been a rollercoaster of news and emotions over the past three weeks. We have felt that we were just waiting for something to go wrong while Quinn has been in the hospital. Now we see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Hopefully the next update will be a birth announcement!

Uneventful Weekend

No news is good news this weekend. Nothing has changed since Friday. Quinn's AFI have not fallen below 6, so the plan is still to wait until the end of next week to induce. The doctors have suggested to conduct an Amniocentesis to verify the baby's lungs are developed enough for a 36 week delivery. This is something that we will discuss with Quinn's doctor tomorrow.
Yesterday Shelby went to dance with Grandma in the morning and she went to a Birthday party for her friend Karli at a park in Bremerton that afternoon. She had a lot of fun and kept her Grandma very busy as well.

I stayed overnight in the hospital with Quinn to keep her company the last couple of nights. It was pretty busy at the hospital on Friday night. In fact, 8 babies were born on here between the first and second of May. We haven't watched this much TV in years. We are sick of the swine flu and the other 5 minutes news that is on every night. Luckily the race on last night. Quinn thoroughly enjoyed it. I went back home this morning to get a couple of things done and to bring Quinn's Mom and Shelby back to the hospital for lunch. Shelby had got Quinn a plant and made her a card. She also was nice enough to bring some of her books so Quinn could read them to her.
Quinn's mom is going back to Kansas tomorrow. She has been a life-saver and I can't thank her enough for coming on such short notice. Now that we can plan ahead a little, I feel we can handle the next week and a half on our own (with a little help from friends). My parents are coming to vist on May 13th. If everthing goes as planed the little one will be home and we will be working on finding the "normal" in life again (or as close to it as possible).
A special thanks to all of the visitors that have come to see Quinn this weekend. It means a lot to know how many people are thinking of her.