She's Here!!!!

We are so proud and excited to announce that our sweet Alivia Miyoko made her appearance today, July 11, 2009 at 2:22 pm. She weighs 6 lbs 12 oz, measures 21 inches long and is absolutely perfect.

So how did it go, you may ask.............
We checked into Bergan Mercy Hospital at 7 pm on Thursday June 9th to have our amnio since we were only at 37 weeks. The amnio needed to come back with a number of 55 or higher. The amnio was really simple and quick. Our number came back about 1.5 hours later - it was 54. NO joke we were 1 number less than the cut off. Dr. K decided to go ahead with our plan because he knew it would be a slower process giving her lungs time to mature to 55 or higher. We started with part one of our induction at around 10:30 pm and part two at 2:30 am on Friday morning. Well to make part of the story short, part one worked exactly as it should and part two (pitocin) didn't do anything but make my contractions strong and erratic. I finally gave in at about 4 am and again at 7 for the pain. At around noon on Friday Dr. K decided to stop this round and start over. So we started over at around 2:30 pm. Again we seemed to do well with the first part but not so well with the pitocin. I just wasn't progressing at all. I had been at 1 cm dilated for all of the first round and 1.5 cm dilated for the first 6 hours of the second. At about 1 am this morning I was about to throw in the towel and go home. We weren't progressing and I was starting to wonder if we should just give it a couple more days and see what happens. So after I was examined and hadn't changed once again I decided it was time to really give it over and pray about what we should do. I spent the next 15-20 minutes deep in prayer asking for guidance, acceptance, and understanding on how we should proceed. I was really considering packing up and heading home and then my water spontaneously broke. Prayers were answered. We were going to progress regardless of what we were electively doing. My prayers were also answered in that I was able to get my epidural at that point (Thank goodness!!!) Things started to pick up and progress from there. I was finally able to comfortably sleep and get some much needed rest. Starting at 6 am I was dilated to 3-4 cm and continued to progress at about 1 cm per hour. We labored down for a bit and once we were told to push it went really quick. I hate to admit how quick but because our induction was so long I don't feel as bad. We pushed through 3 contractions for about 4 minutes and our baby girl made her appearance!! I couldn't believe how beautiful she was from the first moment we laid our eyes on her. What an amazing experience it was to go thorough the birth of our miracle baby!! It was so surreal to go from feeling her movements to putting a face and body to her name. Some moments it is hard to believe that we are parents!! This was such a long time coming but Alivia was well worth the wait. It had to be her, she had to be our first.

So without further explanation or me babbling about how amazing she is, I present to you our first born, Alivia Miyoko Ahern.............
More pictures to come later but we had to share these to start!!