The never seen birth video

You know I was thinking tonight as I was blogging on Ava's site. My friend Carmen was video taping during Ava's labor all the way up until we left for the hospital. I have NEVER watched that video. The tape is still in my desk upstairs. I want to see it but I'm afraid. I know there is a lot of good footage, but the end of the tape would have been hearing the heart rate decels and heading to the hopsital. I remember when we got home, late on January 1, 2008. Everything was exactly as it had been left. It was very surreal. The receiving blankets were still wrapped in a heating pad, there was blood splatters on the bathroom floor (from me), blood stains on our bed. I still remember like it was yesterday. And I still remember walking into our kitchen and seeing the camcorder laying on the table. Kenny asked me what I wanted to do with the tape, and I told him to put it away.... That was almost 4 years ago.

If you look at her picture story, you'll notice that it goes from here...which is about 15 minutes before pushing began.

To this just a few hours later...

I'm still healing over Ava's birth.  Sometimes the 'what if's' drive me crazy.  In those times I really lean on God a lot.  I remember the morning after I had her, I was siting up in my hospital bed channel surfing.  The only channel that would come in was the baby channel and they were talking about new mom's learning how to breast feed.  This was after the neurologist had come in and explained that Ava had lost all of her reflexes, including her ability to swallow.  I remember mourning the loss of breast feeding my baby.  I was sitting in the NICU when my milk came in, and I was surrounded by newborn babies.  Any mom knows that when a baby starts to cry, your milk starts to flow, it doesn't have to be Your baby.  I remember learning that my little girl would never eat by mouth was a mourning process in and of itself. 

I remember one Sunday morning at church, only a few weeks after Ava was born, we were having communion.  When the usher released our row to go up to the front to get the elements, I had to walk the entire perimeter of people seated in chairs on my way to the front.  Our church has a lot of babies, and still having babies.  I remember walking by (what seemed to be) a lot of babies.  There was this one little girl in particular that smiled at me.  She had the cutest curly hair, and was probably about 4-5 months old.  The tears began to flow, and just kept flowing the whole service.  One of our church members saw me and came up behind me when I sat down, and just grabbed me and started praying.  I completely lost it.  I remember the world seemed so heavy at that moment.  That seems like a long time ago, but those feelings still creep up from time to time. 

As hard as things can be, i still feel the Lord's presense very strong in mine and Kenny's lives.  There are times when I cry and cry and ask why us.  He always gently reminds me that He has things well under control.  So yeah I still have the occasional meltdown.  But don't we all?  I have people say to me all the time, "I could never imagine going through what you guys have gone through."  But I don't look at it that way.  Sure it's hard.  But I have an awesome husband who loves me unconditionally, best of all he loves God more than me.  I have friends who are going through things just as hard.  Different, but just as hard.  Some are dealing with sick kids, some are going through divorces, some have constant strife in their family.

Dear Lord, I ask you to be with each and every person reading this who is dealing with tough stuff in life.  Please meet them at their every point of need, and show them you are with them.  Thank you Lord.  Amen.

God Bless You All!

Vicki