My Sweet Ahnali

Since I took a long hiatus from blogging, I never posted a tribute to my Little Ahnali for her birthday. She turned 3 on January 15th. As an added bonus, she potty trained just a couple weeks before. She was soooo easy! I can't believe it! She's growing up so fast and such an independent little girl. She wants to do everything by herself!

Here is what I remember from the day she came into our lives:

I woke up at 3am, Monday January 15th, 2007 to some hard (but not painful) contractions. I woke Jay up and said we may want to go to the hospital. So, we got up, packed my stuff and took David to my parents house.

At about 5am we arrived at Banner Baywood. After filling out some paperwork and getting to triage, we awaited the nurse to hear the verdict. I was fully expecting for them to turn around and send me home because I wasn't hurting. She checked and informed us I was already at 7cm. Whoohoo! We were in a room by 6am, where they got an IV in me and began my first dose of antibiotics for GBS.

At 7am, my sister-in-law, Amanda, showed up to be my doula. I had decided earlier that I was going to try and do this labor without any "assistance" for the pain. I remember working through the contractions with some coaching from Amanda. I also remember my poor Jay trying to comfort me by telling me "You're doing great honey" and me telling him to "Be quiet" because "I want you here, but I don't want to your his voice..." It's funny. I don't remember being like that with the birth of David, but I had an epidural right away with him. I guess you're allowed to be weird and irrational in labor. :D

The pain and discomfort of having a baby began to accelerate and after laboring for about 2 1/2 hours (around 9:30am) my doctor told me that I was at 9cm. "Finally", I thought... "It's time!" To my chagrin, she told me because I was carrying so much extra fluid, my water wasn't breaking on it's own and they were not going to break it for me until they had the 2nd dose of antibiotics for the GBS. "What?" I thought,"that's not for another hour or so!" At this point I was in a lot of pain. If they thought I was going to sit for another hour or so at 9cm without helping me along they were CRAZY!!! I begged for the epidural and after asking 3 times, Amanda said it was okay. The anesthesiologist came and had the epidural tapped in less than 5 minutes! It was amazing and after watching, Amanda was horrified!

I was finally able to rest and at 10:45am the doctor came back in to break my water. At 11:00, they allowed me to begin pushing and after 3-4 pushes at 11:11am little Ahnali Rose Stay was born into this world. She as 8lbs. 7oz. and 21 inches long. She was the most beautiful baby girl I had ever laid my eyes on. Perfect in every way!

Here are 3 of the many, MANY reasons I love Ahnali:

1) She is such a ham!


2) She is so sweet and a sweeter big sister.


3) She is one of the prettiest little girls I've ever seen! (but I'm a bit biased...)


~♥ I love you Ahnali!!! ♥~