Travis and Brii plus Baby makes three!: Avalee Waulker has arrived!

Friends and Family,

After much anticipation, we are proud to announce, "IT'S A GIRL!"

Avalee Waulker decided to make her way into the world on Thursday, May 26 at 6:16 p.m. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 6 oz. and 20.25 in. long with a 35 cm. head. "Avalee" is pronouced just like it reads, "Ava" + "Lee."

My water broke on Thursday morning at 5:15 a.m. We made it to Savannah to The Midwife Group & Birth Center around 7:45, saw the midwife on-call, checked into a hotel upon her recommendation, and waited for contractions to start. They did around 9:30 and quickly started to pick up in intensity and speed. By 11 or so, we were back at the Birth Center, and I was 3-4 cm. dilated. We labored in an exam room for almost 2 hours while they cleaned up the two birthing rooms from the other two babies they'd already delivered that morning. My Mom and sister-in-law/doula extraordinaire Emily arrived within 20 minutes of each other around lunch time. I was blessed with a very gentle, though intense labour. I definitely could not have done it without my excellent support team (Travis, Mom, and Emily) to help with my relaxation cues, keep Gatorade in my system, and let me death glare them during surges :-). Though it wasn't in the original plan, I did end up pushing for about 1 hr. 45 min., but it got us little Avalee in the end.

The first name "Ava" had always been the top of our girls name list, but we were a little disappointed with its recent resurgence in popularity. As a kind of compromise to get what we wanted, but not have a "common" name, we decided to combine the planned first and middle names "Ava" and "Lee" (my and my grandmother's middle name) to get "Avalee." As for "Waulker," that's an old family name on my side, as well as my Mom and sister's middle name. Plus now her name has the added bonus of being the same initials (A.W.T) as Travis's Dad! We're going to definitely say that was intentional, rather than a happy coincidence :-) but we were pretty psyched about it once it was pointed out to us!

I will write up a more complete birth story over the weekend--I just haven't had time yet, and we were so eager to share our news with all of you!

In the meantime, here are a few pictures from Avalee's first few days. Enjoy!