Dan is Home!!

Dan is home from Haiti!!

Saying hi to Rico for the first time in a month or so :) I know a month isn't long at all as far as deployments go but it felt like a year for some reason.

Our date night :)

Hi Everyone!

Something else that I haven't talked about a lot on here was that Dan got deployed a little over a month ago to Haiti to help with the relief efforts over there. I thought this was so great that he had the chance to help the people of Haiti but with the time of deployment being so close to Ava's due date I was nervous to say the least. At one point while he was over there it didn't look like he would be making it back for Ava's birth... the thought of this was unbearable for both of us. Luckily his commander really pushed to get him sent home and it worked!!! He arrived back home last Wednesday night. I drove down to Cherry Point, NC to pick him up and we got home around 5:30 AM the next day... long day but it was definitely worth it :) The entire time since I found out he would be deploying I've been planning as if Dan wasn't going to be here for Ava's birth just in case he wasn't able to be here so I would be prepared for the worst case scenario... I can't tell you what a relief it is to have him home and know for sure that he's going to be here to meet his daughter! Things were tough there for a little bit but everything is calming down now and we're getting very excited to meet Ava in a couple of days! The day after Dan got home we had our doctor's appointment which I was so grateful that he was able to be there for. This appointment was considered a pre-op appointment which the doctors never told me directly but I heard in passing when they were scheduling my appointment. We were sent upstairs to the labor and delivery unit where I met with the doctor. I was very nervous about being in labor and delivery because I know how quickly they try and push things along and I knew we did not want to be scheduled for a c-section or anything like that at least until her due date. Dan helped to calm me down though and the appointment actually went very well. Ava is still in the frank breech position with her feet tucked up by her face and her bottom down near my pelvis. My step-dad was joking the other day that Ava must be stubborn just like her mother hehe I'm thinking this might be true :) That's ok though... I trust that she'll turn if she's able to. So we went over the procedure, recovery and all of those kinds of things. Dan and I both felt very good about the amount of information we received from the doctor and that we were able to schedule the c-section for Ava's due date. Generally this hospital schedules c-sections at 39 weeks for breech babies... the reason has to do with a higher rate of complications, etc, etc. I still knew going in that I would only feel somewhat ok with the c-section if we could have it on her due date or later so that we could give Ava the most amount of time possible to continue growing and to turn if that's what she wants to do. At first the doctor told us we could not have the c-section near her due date and that we needed to have it earlier. So by the end of the appointment when he scheduled it for March 5th I was very excited and feeling somewhat better about the whole thing. We would still love so much to have the experience of a natural birth, for us and more importantly for Ava but if that's not in the cards for us because of hospital policies and such I feel good about the decisions we've made given the circumstances. We are just so happy and grateful to be together, that we're all healthy and looking forward to Ava's arrival at the end of this week :) It's going to be a good week!!

Love <3

Ash and Ava