Ava Nicole Is with Jesus

Well, I cant write about it right now...And Jason is a better writer anyway. So here is the blog he put on myspace about what happened. Please pray for us. thankyou. :0)

My little Ava was born on Sunday October 30, 2006 at 4:12am after my amazing wife was in labor for over 20 hours. She endured back labor, which is much stronger (I've been told) than normal labor which is normally in the abdomen(?). But the doc delivered Ava, and after just a couple minutes, I went into the shut-off area of the room and I got to hold my litle Ava.Just to let you know... this was the scariest thing I've had to do. I was so scared that this experience was going to be absolutly horrifying. I had some wierd images in my mind of how she might look. And the truth is...she was beautiful.Ava had very long legs, and was very tall. 9 inches. She would have passed up her mommy easily. She only weighed about 7.2 ounces. And she was just uinder 5 monthes in the womb. She had her moms lips for sure! But she had many more of my features. (insert ugly joke here).Ash has a condition called having an "incompetant cervix." The cervix is what holds the baby inside the mothers body, and when the baby is ready to come out, it opens up during labor, and the baby is born. Ashleys cervix is not strong enough to hold a baby- so once the baby got so big and so heavy, gravity started pulling the baby out of Ash's body.
The doctors had Ashley in a reclined position, where he head was lower than her body, like laying down on a hill, with your head facing the base. This (in theory) lets gravity pull the baby back into where she was suposed to go. Unfortunately, Ash's body went into labor, and eventually, she gave birth 4 monthes early to our daughter. And at this point, her lungs were not developed to work outside of the womb, and she only lived for an hour ans a half.But what a sweet hour and a half. I was scared. I was sad. I was excited. I was really tired. But I had this little life in my hand. She fit just perfectly into one of my hands. Her skin had no color to it, it was translucent. I could see all her veins and organs and bones. I watched her heart beat so quicly at about 140 beats per minute as she was handed to me, and slowly watched her heart slow down as I held her and welcomed her to a world that couldn't keep her. Her heart went down to about 6 (yes, 6) beats per minute. I shared her with vast amounts of family that came to love and support us. And I got to spend about 30 minutes with her as the doctor and nurses were still working with Ashley.Her ears were not quite developed. They were just little buds on the side of her head, and they had not come out like yours and mine are. But I knew that she could hear me. And I knew she could feel my heart beating, and melting in absolute love for her. I told her about Jesus. About the Cross. How He made her her. He knitted her together inside of Ashely, and I told her that she was a masterpiece. And that God doesn't make mistakes. She was not made for this world, and God wanted her upstairs right away. I told her that her mom and I loved her, and even though I didn;'t mean to, I practically bathed her in my tears. Ashley and I got to hold her and be with her for just a bit longer, and she got taken away to be weighed and printed, and photographed.Ash was taken away to surgery, and I was in the other waiting room with our family. All I could to was sit there. Paralized, I hugged the carebear I gave to Ashley so long ago. The very one I plot to throw away occasionally. And I'm glad I never got away with it. I was amazed that I had been up since about 9am, and the sun was coming up again. We had TV. We had DVD's. We had CD's. We had books, magazines, we had eachother. But the room was silent. Just an occasional sniffle or the sound of a toilet flushing somewhere down the hallway.Finally, people started going home, and Ashley was brought in after recovery. I slept for about an hour and a half, and saw that Ashley had woken up too. I got up, and we finally got to talk. And we got to spend our last few precious hours with Ava Nicole. And early in that evening, we said goodbye. Packed our bags, and came home.Ava is going to be cremated, and brought home with us. And Ashleys aunt has bought us a stone at the cemetary thats going to be a stone around a statue, and we get to engrave Ava's name into it, and other parents like us will buy stones like it, and it will make up the floor around this statue. Ashleys two aunts have both also lost babies this year, so we're trying to get our stones next to eachother. So our 3 baby girls can be together here on earth. Just as they're together in Heaven with my Lord and her Lord Jesus Christ.

Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Psalm 139:12-14