Avery Paul was born on November 18th, 2004 at 9:58pm.  He was 6 lbs, 2 ozs and 19 inches long.  He was born just over 5 weeks premature by emergency csection.

The details:  I had a condition called placenta previa.  We were told that it was suprising we had not had any bleeding yet from it on November 10th at my ultrasound.  On November 15th at 3am I woke up and was bleeding.  We called the doctors office and was told to pack a bag and get to the hospital.  We packed quickly, woke up Trey and brought him to Jay's moms.  Unfortunately we needed gas and money so we made a couple of quick stops along the way and got to the hospital around 4:30am.  We were sent to labor and delivery where they hooked me up to monitors to track Avery's heartbeat and contractions.  I was contracting.  My bleeding slowed down but the verdict was that I was to stay in the hospital until I delivered.  I had spoken with the nurses from the NICU about what to expect with a premature baby and to the anestisiologist about csection and what they would do to numb me.  Jay headed home to get me things that I needed for a possibly very long hospital stay.  I was moved to another floor on Tuesday morning for my bedrest stay.  I was to only get up to use the bathroom.  I was wheelchaired to the showers and had to shower sitting down (not easy to do).  I just had brown, old blood that was very light on Tuesday, Wednesday and most of Thursday.  However, Thursday night at around 7:30pm I went to the bathroom and I was bleeding again.  I pulled my emergency cord and was immediately taken to labor and delivery to be hooked up to monitors.  I was told that the docs decided it was best to deliver Avery that night.  They were going to wait a few hours since I had eaten dinner and had a full stomache (they prefer and empty stomache during surgery).  I called Jay and said that they made the decision and that he only had a couple of hours to get Trey taken care of and get to the hospital.  Not 10 minutes later it was decided that they wanted to deliver in 45 minutes!!!  It takes that long for Jay to get to the hospital so I called him back and said he needed to hurry hurry hurry.  I begged for them to wait for Jay to get there and they agreed (Avery's heartrate was still perfect).  They started preping me for surgery (shots, fluids, cathater in the bladder).  Jay got there and I was wheeled in for delivery.  The spinal was put in and I went numb from the chest down.  After a few minutes Avery was born adn I heard him cry briefly.  The chaos started shortly afterwards.  Avery had lost a lot of blood.  When they cut into me they had to cut through the placenta and it caused blood to drain out of the umbilical cord and Avery.  He was rushed to the NICU.  I was having problems of my own.  The placenta came out fine (there were worries of complications) but I was not contracting well where the placenta was and I was losing some blood.  They had to hand manipulate contractions for a while before my uterus would do it on it's own.  Finally I was stiched up and brought to recovery.  Once the spinal wore off I was in a horrific amount of pain.  It took midol, 2 percocet, morphine, fentenal and demerol to make the pain bearable.  My eyes were very jumpy from all the drugs.  I sent Jay to be with Avery and I was brought back down to my room.  Jay came down after a while with pictures and details on Avery's condition.  Avery was having a lot of problems and was hooked up to a ventilator, getting a blood transfusion, was sedated and had a lot of conplications.  It was hard to see him hooked up to so many machines in the pictures.  I didn't get to see Avery until the next morning.  He will probably be in the NICU for a number of weeks.  He is a fighter but it's touch and go for a while.  He needs all the love and prayers he can get.  He is the most beautiful little boy, and looks a lot like Trey.  He even has hair (Trey had none).  As of today, November 24th, Avery is doing better and getting stronger.  He is still on a ventilator and requires nitric oxide, blood transfusions (because they take a lot of blood from him for tests), and a number of other things.  We have been told that it is realistic to think he will be home for Christmas.  They also say that he has a good chance of coming through this without any long term damage.  Jay and I drive to see him every day for a couple of hours.  It's hard to leave him there and come home.  We will get through it though and we know Avery is in good hands.