The day I met my Averie

Hello Blog world!  And I would first like to say “Sorry” to those friends and family who have followed my blog for its short lifespan and were sorely disappointed with my lack of correspondence.  Well, I’m back and I have a whole ton of writing to do in order to catch you all up.

Since my last post I have gone on a Mexican cruise, had my second baby girl, graduated from Brigham Young University with my Bachelors in Illustration and English, had multiple Disneyland trips, seen old castles in Colorado of all places, run my first half marathon, gained a ton of weight (like 60 pounds), lost a ton of weight (just about 60 pounds), put both of my children in nursery, and winding down with my experience here in Provo.  A lot you guys missed out on.

Now that I have only mentioned what I have done since last writing I hope you will forgive me for just writing about the most important one and then moving on with life.  Maybe one of those days I’ll revisit everything else, most likely not, not that this should diminish their importance at all, but I would like for this blogging to become a better habit for the sake of grandparents.  And so here is the most important post from that list previously mentioned:

The Day I Met My Averie  

(Warning: There is rather graphic content, it was a graphic ordeal)  

 I had my mother come in to town shortly before my due date, a due date I knew was wrong by a week or so, so when the time for Averie to arrive came and went with no baby to show for it, I wasn’t worried and refused the doctor’s proposal to be induced.  So I went about life as usual, going to my evening cooking class and working on my last English assignments in order to finish my degree.  In fact, my cooking class knew when my due date was as I was the only pregnant (well REALLY pregnant one) in the whole class I sort of stood out (and it was a big class to, it was one of those classes that filled an auditorium).  Anyways, the next class day after my due date I sauntered into class and made my way to my usual seat when I hear someone say “Awwww!”  I turn in the direction of the noise and notice the girl making the noise was looking at me, then the rest of the class notices I’m here and they all, yes literally all, make similar exclamations and ask why I am still here!  Well, later that week I finally got an excuse to not show up to class.  Sunday, November 21^st at around 7pm or so Ryan and I are driving home from a family dinner in Alpine when I start to feel contractions.  Now, knowing that I’ve had contractions before for the past couple of weeks and nothing has come of it I don’t think much of it.  But the pain is consistent enough that I take a bath when I get home.  I was told that if I took a bath the contractions would either go away and I’d feel better, or they would intensify and I would need to get out the door and get to the hospital.  Luckily it was the latter this time.  The bath really helped with the pain and the contractions came in steady and quicker.  This put the household into a frenzy of Ryan calling the hospital to tell them I’m coming, to Mom pulling together my bag and Torrie and Arianna, my sisters, getting Maija situated to go to sleep and sending the monitor upstairs for the neighbors to listen out for Maija.  I am at this time dressed and sitting on the floor in my front room laboring through contractions and cracking jokes when all of the sudden I feel really wet.  I reach below myself to make sure that my water had broke and my hand came back with… blood.  I sit up and I’m sitting in a pool of blood.  I ask Arianna to look this up on the internet and see if this is normal, she does and what she reads is NOT good (placenta pulling away from the uterine wall), but she puts on a smile for me and says everything is alright but urges the others to get going and get me out the door.  By this time I’ve lost a lot of blood and feel like I want to black out.  I make it to the bathroom to use the toilet but end up lying on the bathroom floor and I was told I was mumbling “my baby, my baby!” Ryan helps me out the door and into the car.  I could feel ever bump and rock on the road on the way to the hospital and every movement made me want to hurl.  We make it to the hospital (I agree with Brian Regean when he asks “why don’t they have valet parking at the hospital?”) and they wheel me into a room.  While trying to undress and dress I end up losing my dinner into a little pink tub that a nurse was smart to have handy; it was too bad, it was a really good dinner.  Anyways, after laboring through the pain for about an hour (I had read up and practiced Hypnobirthing which helped me with the beginning stages of labor and I was able to just moan through most of it, but when the pushing pain came, Holy Cow!)  The doctor finally arrived and had me push for what seemed like FOOORRRREEEEVVVVEEEERRRRRR.  And then out popped my beautiful dark haired blue-eyed angel.  There was a problem with her breathing as she had the cord wound around her neck while coming down the birth canal (in fact, when the doctor discovered this he told me to stop pushing at which point I thought “I can no sooner stop a train with my head!”)  There was a bit of scrambling around as they were trying to get my Averie to breathe, in fact Ryan didn’t even get to cut the umbilical cord, but they managed to get Averie breathing and crying again around 11pm.

The first day with your baby in the hospital is my favorite part about being a mommy.  I don’t have to worry about the house, how I look, other obligations, or even food, it’s just me and my baby.  Even now, I love one on one time with my Averie and I love to watch her grow.   

She is so smart and SO beautiful, I love to just watch her try to feed herself, I love spying on her when she is playing or reading books by herself and doesn’t notice me, I love her repeating what Maija says or mimicking her movements.  She is a cute stubborn little thing and will have no problem letting me know when I’ve “stepped out of line” in her book.  She is caring and loves to give me hugs and kisses and she genuinely cares for her sister and how her sister feels.  So much maturity in such a little person, it is such a miracle to watch.  She loves to snuggle with me while watching a movie, she likes to grab a book and then walk backwards until she falls into my lab so that we can read the book together, and she likes to stand in front of me and hand me a brush so that I could brush her hair.  I just love my little Averie and I’m so excited to be with her every day since that first day we met.