The Cooper Family: Welcome, Megan Faye!

On July 27, 2011, we welcomed Megan Faye Cooper to our family! She weighed 7 pounds, 1 ounce, and was 20 inches. She was scheduled to arrive on August 1st, but decided to come early--thank goodness, I was ready! I woke up around 12:30am on the 27th to some pretty strong contractions. I had never been in labor before, as Ava was a scheduled c-section as well (breech baby!). I went out to the living room and sat there for about 2 hours, timing the contractions and trying to figure out if I was really in labor. Everytime I had a contraction, I felt like, for sure, this was it. But in the 5-6 minute breaks that I would get, I felt fine and figured I was being too cautious. Is this labor? Or am I just imagining it? For 2 hours I felt like that. Finally, around 2:30am, I called my sister, who works nights at the hospital and happened to be working that night. She answered the phone and when I said "I think I'm in labor", she started cracking up! She walked to the maternity wing and talked to the nurses on duty. They told me to drink lots of water and lay down for a bit. Once I got comfortable on the couch, Lisa called me back and said that one of my doctors was actually on her way to the hospital for another patient. Lisa suggested that I just come in and get checked out--if I needed to have a c-section, at least my doctor would be there. So, I went in and woke Mark up and told him that I thought we should go to the hospital. I already had my bag packed, so I was ready! Mark, on the other hand, didn't have anything ready--I think he was still in denial at this point! LOL At 3am, I went into Ava's room and woke her up. I felt so bad--she was sound asleep and looked so comfy in her bed. This better be the real thing, I thought. Otherwise, I was going to feel so bad waking everyone up at o'dark hundred! It took a minute to get Ava up and going but by the time we were in the car, she was chattin' up a storm! She was in such a good mood at 3:30 in the morning! On the way to the hospital I had several very strong contractions--the kind you can't even talk yourself through. I was pretty sure this was the real thing.

We got to the hospital around 4am and met my sister outside. She took Ava to her office so they could color and hang out for a bit. They hooked me up to the monitors to see how strong my contractions were and said it was going to be about an hour for them to decide if they were going to keep me and do a c-section that day, or not. My only thought was, "I'm going to have to have these contractions for another hour???" I know now, that I am definitely not a fan of labor--bring on the c-section!!! They decided around 5:15am they were going to perform a c-section at 6:30am. Again, my first thought was, "I'm going to have to have these contractions for another hour and 15 minutes???" Good thing, the time flew by and before we knew it, I was walking myself into the operating room. Megan was born 25 mintues later and, as you can see, is perfect! :) My parents arrived just 10 minutes after I was wheeled into the recovery room (my sister didn't call them until 5:15am when the decision was made to keep me and take the baby that day. They loaded the car up and made the 1.5 hour drive to Chico in record time!).

My mom stayed the 3 nights in the hospital with me so Mark could provide Ava with some "normalcy" at home. The nurses at the hospital were fabulous and my stay, other than the very uncomfortable beds, was great! We were able to go home that Saturday to start our lives as a family of four!