Our sweet little miracle, Rylan Avery was born September 19th
at 7:51am, weighing a nice 6 pounds 13 ounces and measuring 19 ¾! He is
officially 2 weeks old as of yesterday and doing incredibly well! It is so surreal
to be holding and looking at this little man who grew in my belly. Holding his
tiny little hands and kissing this little feet and staring at his little nose
fill me with such joy. There are no words to describe how in love with this boy
I am. I have never known love like this, and thank God every day for this
little miracle!
Birth Story:
Because my little man is stubborn, or it could be that I
only have half of a uterus, he was breech. He was breech the entire pregnancy,
so I had to have a planned C-Section at 39 weeks. We chose the 19th.
It turns out that the 19th was a very special day for many reasons.
It is my Aunts Birthday, D’s niece’s birthday, and my doctor’s birthday. Not
only was it my doctor’s birthday, but because my C-Section was scheduled in the
morning, I had my doctor there to delivery my baby, but then she was being
induced that evening for her own baby. We are both 33 and carrying our first
child via IVF and they are both boys. Dr. Williams is a badass and a wonderful
woman for sticking around to deliver my baby. It was an honor to have her in
there. She even popped by to hold him afterwards.
We (Mom, D, and A) arrived at the hospital at 5:15am with varying
emotions. We stopped to take 1 final picture of my preggo belly at the hospital
entrance just before we got to meet our little man. We checked in and got into
my room shortly after. I changed into my lovely gown and began to prep. It had
always been a dream of mine to have both my mom and D with me during delivery.
My mom got to be there for the transfer and was a HUGE help and support through
this whole process, I couldn’t imagine her not being there. We asked the anesthesiologist
if I could have 2 support people with me, and he kindly agreed. At 7:15am, I
got wheeled back into the operating room where I got my epidural, and was prepped
for surgery. Shortly after, they let mom and D back there with me. I could feel
a ton of pressure, tugging and pulling which was an odd sensation. Within
minutes, I heard them say that the butt was coming out first….and seconds
later, my little man made his entrance into this world. I just started sobbing
and repeating that there was my son, there is our baby. D held me head and
sobbed right along with me while my mom grabbed her phone and took a ton of
pictures. The time had come for D to cut the umbilical cord, and I was left
there alone waiting to see my son and praising God for this little miracle. I
could not believe that this was real, that my son was really here. Moments
later, they brought over my bundle of joy and set him next to me. I covered him
in kisses and kept repeating how beautiful he was. He was truly the most
beautiful thing I had ever seen. My blood pressure dipped really low, so they
decided to have my mom and D take Rylan to meet his sister while they finished
up.
I got back to the room and got some immediate skin on skin
with my little man, however, I was extremely nauseous and having a hard time
with my blood pressure, so it ended sooner than I would have liked.
Pediatricians came around shortly after to give him his shots and check him
out. There had been an issue with a possible abnormality that they wanted to
check out, so they told me they would take him for testing and be right back. 2
hours later, I still had not seen my baby since they took him. A nurse came in
to see how I was doing and I asked her about Rylan. She told me that they had
taken him to the nursery because during his testing, his oxygen went low. I
asked to go see him, but she told me I had to wait a little while longer, so I
sent D who was still at the hospital with me to go see him. He went down and
spent a half an hour with him before they finally let me go see him. When I got
to the nursery, I finally got to hold him. I held him for about a half an hour
before they told me that he had to go to NICU for the night because his oxygen
was still too low. I was really bummed. They took him to NICU and sent me back
to my room. A few hours later after he was all settled into NICU, they let me
come down to see him. They asked if I wanted to try nursing, which I did. I got
there and was a little worried and stressed, so the nursing didn’t work out, so
they offered to supplement with donor milk for the time being. I got to come
down every 3 hours for feedings and got to stay as long as I wanted to with him.
It wasn’t ideal, but everyone was lovely, and I was happy that I finally got to
spend some time with my son. The next morning, around 4:30am, D and I went down
to feed and hold him and they shared with us that he had done so well that they
took him off oxygen and it looks like he is doing well on his own. They had to
monitor him for a bit longer, but it looked like he would get to come to our
room that night. All in all, he had a 28 hour stay in NICU and was back in our
room. That would be our last night in the hospital, but we got to spend it with
our son in the room. It was hard and challenging, but so worth it. The next day
was spent with us as a new family holding him, feeding him, and loving up on
him. The 2 days I was there we had our awesome friends and family come visit
him and share their love. It was a wonderful few days with some ups and downs,
but I wouldn’t change it for the world. We left the hospital at 7pm that night
with our little man and the start of our journey as a family of 4!
Our little man is 2 weeks old and doing great! The testing
he had done has all been prefect and promising and he is still as amazing as
ever! Rylan is the best thing I have ever done in my life and I am the happiest
that I could have ever imagined. Motherhood has been rough, and a lot harder
than I anticipated, but it is all absolutely worth it! When he wakes up and does those cute little
stretches, or when he is sleeping and makes the silliest little faces, my heart
just melts. I love waking up and seeing this gift from God looking back at me.
It doesn’t matter if he is content or screaming his head off, all I can do is
smile and fight back the tears of happiness as I realize with every breath that
he takes, my dreams and prayers came true. The love of my life has changed my
life in more ways than I can say.
I can’t wait to write updates of this little man’s journey through life, my journey in motherhood, and everything in between. Thank you to anyone and everyone who has supported us through this and for the many prayers sent. There are no words that I can say that can come close to the gratitude that I feel. My heart is full and feels complete!
