If you’ve been following since last spring, then you know we got the most unexpected surprise when we found out I was pregnant last May! Never in a million years did we even think it was possible, and so this past year has been a bit surreal for us. The irony of it all, I suppose, was that while we thought this would be such an easy pregnancy compared to being pregnant with twins – I was proven wrong time and time again.
Baby girl gave us lots of scares throughout my pregnancy and whenever I talked about it with James – he said “Did you think this was going to be easy? We had a hard time getting to the ‘pregnant’ point with the boys – and this time we are having a hard time after the getting pregnant part.”
The big scares started at 14 weeks when I had an awful bleeding episode. I was in Target shopping by myself with the boys when it started (not an ideal place to be when you are not prepared to just start bleeding heavily – but the women working there that helped me were so incredibly kind – it still makes me cry to think about it to this day). I followed up at my OB and then landed in the ER the next day when the bleeding still hadn’t stopped. Miraculously, our girl was thriving through all of it. The bleeding finally slowed after a few days and spotting ended after a month.
Of course, once I thought we were in the clear – we had my 20 week ultrasound where we got more scary/confusing news. Our baby girl had pretty severe hydrops (fluid in her belly) and anemia. (Thankfully I didn’t fully realize how serious these conditions were at the time, and am soooo glad I didn’t google them! Whew.) We had to closely monitor her health for the next few months – which meant regular trips to high risk doctors at the hospital and what felt like endless ultrasounds. Miraculously, her condition started to slowly improve on its own, and finally cleared up around 34 weeks! Our OBs believed we would have a healthy and normal baby… and my goodness we just prayed that they were right.
Given the issues during my pregnancy and my previous c-section with the boys – after lots of discussions with our doctors, we decided getting her out as soon as she was big enough via c-section was the right decision for us. So at 38 weeks and 4 days, we had a scheduled c-section and welcomed a beautiful, amazingly healthy baby girl into our world!!
Aya Mae Rose Tyler was born on December 20th at 1:09pm and was a healthy 7 lbs 8 oz and 19 inches long!
I was so nervous going into the c-section, but forgot about all of it when I heard her cry for the first time. I just completely lost it and cried tears of relief and gratitude. Our miracle girl had survived and thrived through battling whatever awful illness in utero she had throwing her for a loop – and had made it to full term without needing to spend a second in the NICU or under any special monitoring.
She was perfect.
This time around we were more prepared – so James brought our camera into the OR and documented her birth. Then our dear friend, Suzy, of Simply by Suzy, stopped by the recovery room to document us with our little girl in all her sweet newness. The last photos in this series were a few I took since we’ve been at home. I’m so excited to share these with you all! We still can’t believe this is real life and are so grateful for all the prayers and love you all sent throughout this rollercoaster of a pregnancy. It means the world to us.
But enough chatting from me… world – we’d like you to meet Aya!
(The photo on the right starts Suzy’s photos… )
And the rest are our personal photos below…
Gabe was a special kind of crazy that day and was acting so nuts that I decided trying to have him hold a newborn maybe wasn’t a great idea… haha.
There she is!! 🙂 Goodness, we love her so.
(More photos from Suzy from the hospital and at-home newborn sessions yet to come! Of course we will share once we have them!)
XOXO
