Ella Ave’s Birth Story
May 19, 2010
Ella’s birth story begins in September of 2009. David and I had definitely thought about having more kids, but thought we’d wait until the winter to start trying so that our kids would be two years or more apart. We were at the Cincinnati Zoo one September day and every time I saw a baby girl, I thought I was going to cry I wanted to hold one so bad. Seriously, it was the strangest thing. I thought I was going crazy. Later that day I had this really weird feeling that I might be pregnant. Remember, we were not trying at this time, so there was no reason to believe that we were pregnant. We went to the store and picked up a home pregnancy test. I decided to take the test the next morning. I usually work Sunday mornings, but I was off that day. I took the test, waited a few minutes, saw only one line and threw it away. Then I remembered that I had done the same thing with Brady’s test, so I went back in, took it out of the garbage and sure enough, there were two lines. We went to the doctor that week and we had to take a blood test there (for some reason, my urine pregnancy tests always come back negative at the doctor’s office). We had given the doctor permission to leave a message on our answering machine with the results. I was at Bible study that night, so David heard the message. He called me when I was on my way home and told me we were having a second baby. Though we were so surprised, we were even more excited! I decided to call my Dad and let him know since he is always the last to know things. He was at the Reds game when we told him. I then called my Mom and told her the big news. We decided to wait to tell David’s family because his younger sister had just had her first baby that day and we did not want to take anything away from her. But, the next day the news came out (we are horrible secret keepers). Fortunately, his sister was so happy for us. David told her on the phone while I was in the hospital room visiting her and the new baby. That was fun, just keeping the cycle going in that family! We wanted to wait to tell everyone else, but by the time I was seven weeks, people could already tell and starting asking (which was pretty brave if you ask me!).
We had quite a few ultrasounds with Ella early on. The doctor ordered one at around six weeks just to check on the size and all that fun stuff. I don’t think I really believed we were pregnant until I saw that little dot on the screen. We had one or two more before our twenty week routine one. We decided to take Brady with us to the twenty week, but since he was only about seventeen months, he was not too into it. We went back and forth on whether we would find out the gender or not. For awhile we thought about finding out ourselves and not telling anyone else (I love surprises), but in the end, we decided to share the gender and not the name. David was busy occupying Brady when the ultrasound tech started typing the letters on the screen. As soon as I saw that “G” I was overjoyed. I looked at David and said, “It’s a girl!”. I could not believe that we had our handsome little man and now we were going to have a little beauty. I had always wanted a boy then a girl, I felt so blessed! We called our family and friends to tell them the news and everyone was so excited. It was the best feeling, knowing that other people were already loving our little one.
My pregnancy went pretty well, minus the usual pregnancy symptoms, until my 32nd week. I thought I was having contractions and they were becoming regular, so my doctor sent me to the hospital. We went up to the hospital where I was told to be very careful and not do anything that I did not need to do. That was on a Sunday night. Just a few days later, on Wednesday, I was having contractions again. This time, I was sent home from the hospital on much stricter bed rest. I was devastated. This happened with Brady at 33 weeks and I had been adamant about this not happening with my second pregnancy. I realize that there was nothing that I could have done to prevent it, but I was hoping that if I said it wouldn’t happen again, that it wouldn’t. I was unable to work, but still went to church once a week with David and Brady. We made this deal because I had started to get depressed when I was not able to leave the house for four weeks when I was on bed rest with Brady. It definitely helped. I was anxious for our little girl to get here, but wanted for her to wait until at least the 37th week. Brady had been born at that time and minus a little jaundice, was perfectly healthy. So, I tried my best to take it easy.
We had scheduled Ella’s c-section birth for May 21st. Her due date was May 28th, so that was the earliest we were allowed to schedule. Since my blood pressure was fine (I was induced with Brady because it got dangerously high), we just waited around patiently (kind of patiently!). I had planned out our week leading up to the delivery. We would have grocery shopping one day, another day for packing, etc. Our good friends decided to host a grill out for us on Thursday, May 20th as a little party before our baby girl arrived. I was really looking forward to celebrating her with our close friends on that night. My parents and sister had traveled up to Michigan that week to visit my brother and his family who were in town. I repeatedly told my Mom to go since they would be home late on the 18th which was plenty of time. As now we know is typical Ella fashion, girlfriend had her own plans. Around 5:00 a.m. on the 19th I dragged my huge body out of bed for the millionth time for a potty break (seriously, I gained 60 pounds…I mean huge body). I laid back down and felt a really odd sensation, like bubbles. I then heard a snap and somehow got my big pregnant belly out of bed just in time for my water to break. And I mean it broke, big time. I woke David up and said “my water broke”. He responded with “really?” which made me question it, so I responded back with “oh my gosh, no, I am wetting my pants”. He looked up and said “nope, your water broke”. Brady was asleep on our bed through all of this and never woke up, he sleeps like his mama. We called my Mom right away (they had just gotten back in town about eight hours before this) and told her to come over. The hospital told me to come on up and I did my best to not leak everywhere. We grabbed our bags and headed out the door when my Mom arrived. I was contracting pretty regularly at this point, so the ride to the hospital was not my favorite memory. I am pretty sure I yelled at David a few times about his driving (sorry, David).
When we checked into Triage, we did all of the normal routine. We were back in the room when some of my water started leaking again. The nurse looked at it and looked at me. She asked if the water had always been that color and as soon as she asked that, I knew something was wrong. I had read about this and for some reason it had not hit me yet. The water had a brownish tint, which meant there was meconium in the fluid. The nurse started calling pediatricians and I started praying. The plan was to have pediatricians on standby at her delivery in case she needed to be taken to the NICU for complications.
We were taken back to the surgery prep area and I sent out the text messages to our family and close friends to let them know it was baby time. I tried my best not to worry too much and just kept praying for our yet to be named little girl. We were taken back to the c-section room and it was a much better experience than with Brady. There was not as much rushing, so the drugs actually had time to numb me. I loved our anesthesiologist, he was funny and kind. He sat right by my head the whole time. He offered to let me watch her being pulled out and I declined. He promised me that I would not see anything bad, so I agreed. I am so glad I was able to witness her birth! The anesthesiologist saw her and said “I bet she is nine five!”. He was close; she weighed 9 pounds 4 ounces. The whole surgical team was great and made the delivery so much more enjoyable and really calmed my nerves. The nurses started to ask her name and we told them we did not know yet. I knew I wanted her middle name to be “Averil” or “Ave” after my great aunt. I never met Aunt Ave, she died before I was born, but she had played a major part in my Dad coming to Christ, so she was important to me. Her full name was “Averil”, but she always went by “Ave”. We were going to pick the middle name based on how many syllables were in the first name (so a two syllable first name meant we would go with a one syllable middle name). We had been through so many names when we were pregnant. For a really long time, we were sure her name would by Lyla. Then I decided I really liked Cooper for a girl. We finally narrowed it down to Reese or Claire. Two days before she was born, I put Ella into the running. I had wanted to name a girl that for years and it was even Brady’s name if he was a girl. I had decided early on in the pregnancy that we would not name her Ella because I knew people who had daughters named Ella. But, right before she was born, I decided that I did not care if other people I knew had an Ella, I just loved that name. We told the nurses that her name was either Reese or Ella. They encouraged Reese and then we told them the middle name and they loved Ella Ave (pronounced like Ava, minus the “ah” at the end). As soon as I saw just how perfect and beautiful she was, I knew she was an Ella. So, as we were wheeled into the recovery room, we announced to the surgical team that her name was Ella Ave. It was fun sending out the message that her name was Ella because no one even knew we were considering that name.
My Mom and sister brought Brady up to the hospital as soon as we were settled in. They had him buy her a pink elephant (elephants are my favorite). I cannot describe to you the joy that filled my heart the first time our family of four was all together. This is it. This is what all is about. I am so thankful that God created families and loves us enough to allow us to become parents. My heart is so full.
