Avery Rose - Born February 9, 2013!

Praise God! She is finally here!

Avery Rose was born February 9, 2013 at 3:01pm, weighing 6lbs, 15oz. She was 20 inches tall! She is absolutely amazing!!  She's about 3 1/2 weeks old now... she'll be a month old in just 4 days! She's tiny - still only about 7.5 lbs now, but she's happy and healthy!

The pain is 90% GONE and my beautiful precious Avery is FINALLY here! I've been waiting for her since early 2009.   This wonderful child is a true miracle and an answer to many prayers!  Her big sister Zoe actually prayed for a baby sister last summer and it was that month that she started praying that we finally found out we were expecting and of course... it turned out to be a girl, just as Zoe said :-)

Avery looks quite a bit like Zoe did at this age! I can definitely see some differences though.  She has dimples just like her sister though!! So cute! Right now, at least at this stage she's at now, I think she looks more like Gage than me.   She is such a good baby so far - she sleeps for 3-4 hours at a time.  We usually only need to wake up 2 times a night.  I am so much more exhausted this time around though... I remember last time I had a newborn waking up wasn't a challenge but now every time I need to get up I feel like it's impossible. haha!


I feel like I've just climbed Everest or something.  This pregnancy ranked among the top 3 most difficult and challenging trials in my life so far... the top two being my parents divorce in 1995 and my Mom passing away in 2005.  The past 9 months completely changed my perspective on life. I'm so excited to see what the future holds now!

The pain stuck around for a week after Avery's birth and then one morning (after one of the worst nights I ever experienced...) I woke up feeling completely fine.  I still don't understand it! It must have been a direct answer to someone's prayer because for me to go from total agony to completely fine in a matter of hours... it's incredible!


It's amazing how fast time is flying now that I'm not in excruciating pain every moment of the day :)  I still have a pretty serious problem with my back and pelvis but I can WALK again which, to me, is an absolute miracle!  After 7 months of being in so much pain 24/7, the pain had become normal to me.  So now, almost a month later, every time  I do something that I wasn't able to do without pain for so long, I'm shocked that I can do it again! I go from sitting to standing in about 2 seconds now instead of 10-15 seconds. I actually surprised Zoe today by showing her that I can in fact jump again ;) Granted, not super well...but hey to a 4 year old it was pretty impressive.

I now have such an enormous appreciation for the ability to be mobile. I hope I can always be grateful for this. I hope I can always appreciate the ability to walk, stand up, sit in a chair, lay down, roll over in bed, get dressed, put on shoes...

I'm not sure when but as soon as I can, I'll be getting back on the treadmill and hopefully, by God's grace, I'll be able to run again sometime this summer. I seriously may cry once I'm finally able to run again.

Even through all that pain, all the challenges we all went through during the pregnancy, I am so beyond glad that I did it.  It was worth it. She is here!