The Honest Mom: The Story of Ava

Since I did a post on the Story of Emma, I'll do one on Ava now. Leah will be the next one.

I'll start where I left off from Emma's story...

My husband found a job! ...but... it was 5-6 hours away. We were living with my parents at the time. I'm very close with my family, so this was very hard for me to comprehend doing...Leaving my family.

He of course took the job. It was the perfect job for him. It's where he wanted to be, and with a great Christian company. He started the beginning of March 2010.

Emma was 3 1/2 months old now. Jon went ahead and moved to the new city, to start his new job. I stayed behind for Emma's 4 month well check appointment.

Jon came back for 3 weekends in a row to visit Emma and me... The third weekend he came back for a visit, we moved with him.

The next weekend after we moved... I honestly don't even remember why anymore, I must not have felt very well, so I took a pregnancy test...It was positive.

On April 1st...of course. Neither Jon, nor my family believed me...I hardly believed it myself... I was pregnant.

I feel like a lot of this was a blur. I don't remember a whole lot... Other than we just had Emma, we just moved to a new City, I didn't know anyone, and I just found out that I'm gonna have another baby. BUT... that's a whole different post click here to read.

I had to wait a whole month before I could go to a doctor, or even make an appointment somewhere. Until our new insurance came into affect.

I didn't start getting sick until about 12 weeks. It was rough...having an infant and being pregnant at the same time. Of course, every time I left the room for my "morning sickness" Emma cried because I left her. It wouldn't have been so hard if we were still around family.

Anyway... When it finally came time for the ultrasound, we found out we were having another girl!

We also found out that my placenta was lying low, but that it should fix itself as i grow. I got another ultrasound around 30 weeks I think...and everything was normal!

^This is Emma At 11 months old and me 37 weeks along with Ava.

I started having contractions early morning on Nov. 18th. I went to the hospital to get checked. I went from 3 centimeters to 4 centimeters in about 1 hour. So they decided to keep me.

I knew that I was under a lot of stress during this pregnancy...but I was about to find out how much it really affected me.

I was due Dec. 6, 2010...the day before Emma's first birthday. She came 2 1/2 weeks early, on Nov. 18th. We named her Ava!

The labor and delivery itself was actually pretty similar to when I had Emma. Finally, the moment came for that final push and when she came out ... there was no cry. I felt like everything around me was coming to a stop. I remember looking at Jon and saying "she's not crying, why isn't she crying? babies cry when their born"

Jon and I just looked at each other and were trying to see what was going on. Why didn't she cry? What was going on?

A nurse finally came over and told us that since she was so early, technically preterm, she was having some trouble breathing. Every new parents worst fear.

This is the first picture we got of her...

Stress can cause preterm birth. So that's why Ava came early. Preterm is 37- 38 weeks...I did not know this, but if an expectant mother is under stress it can slow down certain organs form developing as they should. So that's why she was having trouble breathing.

They had her under something called 'the hood'.

The hood wasn't helping so they had me kangaroo with her to see if that would help regulate her breathing. That was the first time I got to hold her. They let me hold her for about 10 minutes before they decided to take her to the NICU.

And then they whisked her away.

This is what she looked like for about the first week or so. They hooked her up to a cpap to help her breathe.