Introducing....

I promise to have a real birth story up soon, but for now here is the short version.

Ava Aurora Ice was born at home unassisted on her bedroom floor at 3:31 am on July 17, 2011. She was 7 pounds even and 19 1/2 inches long.

I woke up twice to use the rest room and both times I had pretty serious contractions. I woke Cassie (my doula) to tell her and she said we should give it 20 more minutes. I closed my eyes and started to fall back to sleep when another contraction came and it was intense. I told myself that when it was over I would definitely have to wake Cassie back up, except the contraction never actually ended. Suddenly the pain was too much for me to hold back any noise and I was loud enough that it woke Cassie and Jack, who came in the room and laid down on the bed. I remember saying 'I THINK I NEED TO PUSH!' and telling myself 'the pain ends when she is out' in order to keep breathing. I pushed once on all fours on the bed and then threw myself off to lean on the bed on my knees where I reached down and could feel her head already coming out. I pushed once more and my water broke as the rest of her head came out, one more final push and Ava's whole body was out. I birthed my baby in three pushes! The whole labor lasted about 20 minutes.

It was amazing. It was so simple. It was completely unexpected. I may have mentioned on here my worries about not being able to make it to the hospital on time, and well, I suppose my worry was right!

An ambulance was called and we have been at the hospital since early Saturday morning. I am not sure when we will be leaving the hospital as all the nurses are trying to get us out of here today but it seems the pediatricians want Ava to stay a full 48 hours because she was born at home.