our girl turns six!

six years ago we were in washington, attending gpa gary's retirement party. i was about thirty seven weeks and feeling pretty good. we knew the baby was small. we also knew that our ob strongly recommended not traveling in the third trimester. cw was fourteen months old and thirty-plus pounds. we flew home to indy on the 3rd and spent the 4th at my mom's house with meg's family and weed. it was a sunday. i went to the doctor on tuesday, around 11am. they did an ultrasound, estimated that the baby weighed about five pounds, nine ounces and sent us out the door and to the hospital. i remember crying in the room after the doctor left us. imagining every worse case scenario and wondering what i could have done to prevent being in the situation we were in. two weeks prior the ob told us that if the baby had not gained at least one more pound by my next appointment, they would induce. we knew she was small and that my fluid level was kind of low. i spent the last two months of that pregnancy drinking a gallon or two of water each day. the ob was concerned she would start losing weight. he determined the best alternative was to get her here to basically assess the damage (baby's born with iugr often have other complications), and start pumping her full of food. my mom and weed were at home with cw. meg and em hurried to our house. we went home, grabbed our bags, kissed cw, and headed to the hospital two weeks before my due date. the nurses started a drip immediately and within an hour of getting there i was having contractions. mom and weed and meg took turns staying with cw and visiting with mw and i. around 9:15pm, i told mw that i really needed to use the restroom, the not ladylike kind. he looked down and said, "i'll be right back, i think i need to get the doctor." apparently he could see her head. the doctor arrived, ushered my mom and older sister to the hall, and told me to push. at 9:47pm, aw was born. doctor bower looked up at us and said, "she's a perfect, little peanut." and she was. she weighed five pounds, eight ounces and was nineteen inches long. despite the iugr, she was healthy and strong, no noticable problems or complications. just tiny. ten minutes later, my mom and meg walked in. weed walked in a few minutes later, saw the baby in mw's arms, and shot me a look meant to pulverize stone. mw handed the baby to her, asked my mom and meg to stand in the hall, and we got to work on names. we were down to two. the other was alexandra. we let weed pick her middle name from a list of approved names. we stayed together in the room for a while, marveling at such a tiny piece of perfection. feeling very blessed to have two healthy children. wondering what cw would think of his new sister. reflecting on how much life had changed for us in fourteen short months. it was a wonderful day. a perfect day for a perfect, little, peanut.




did i mention that we have two really great families? every single adult on both sides called to wish aw a happy bday. by the tenth phone call she was cranky and rude. i'm not apologizing. she is what she is and we all love her for it.