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We welcomed sweet baby Aubrey Elise on January 26, 2019 at 11:21 am. She came two weeks early after I was emergently induced for cholestasis. And if you remember, we never opened that gender envelope from our anatomy scan (much to my hubby and mom’s dismay) and didn’t actually know the gender. I hid that envelope on the top shelf behind a plant for all those of you who threatened to come turn my house upside down to find that bad boy! What a total shock when she came out! I was so convinced and confident we were having our third boy, I only brought boy stuff to the hospital, except for some small bows, and had been calling my belly “Bennett” for several months.

For both of our boys we bought the one year package from Melissa Robotti of Robotti and Rosa Photography in Walpole. There is something so magical and sweet about that first year with a baby. They change so much that this package with newborn photos in those precious first days, at 6 months and 1 year, allows us to capture it in lovely ways. Melissa and Ali have the prettiest loft studio and so many darling props for photos. We just adore these memories that Melissa has given us and have a grouping of their first year pictures in barnwood frames going up our stairs. This is probably the best decision we’ve made to document these early years with our kiddos and can’t recommend Melissa enough. She’s amazing, so patient and talented! If you’re in New England, definitely think about this investment and give her a call.

My old coworker and friend came over to spend some time with me on Thursday and she asked me how I was sleeping. I told her I was sleeping well but having a hard time falling asleep because my feet and palms were so itchy. She looked at me and said, “YOU need to call your doctor ASAP, that’s a thing. That’s cholestasis.” And the minute she said it, it was like all my medical background kicked in and I knew. But I was really hoping for another weekend without a newborn to get our master closet organized. We had no family in town yet because we were still two weeks out from our due date and I had had a weekly checkup on Tuesday and was no where near going into labor naturally. So I had this internal debate going on. I could say nothing to my hubby and doctor and get my weekend to finish things up OR I could do the responsible thing and call my doctor. I did end up calling the doctor, they had me come in right away and the minute I explained my symptoms to the nurse practitioner, her face dropped and she rushed out of the room to order STAT labs. Turns out this is a scary thing and they don’t like you to go past 36 weeks pregnant if you have cholestasis because it greatly increases the risk of stillbirth and complications in pregnancy.

The doctor called a few hours later and said, “We need you to come to the hospital now, we need to get that baby out.” So I did what all crazy pregnant ladies do and argued…asking if we could push this whole thing a few days so I could get my sock drawer organized. She said, “Ya nope, 7 pm we’re inducing you.” My mother in law and sister in law immediately got on a plane, our sweet friends took our boys (turns out Cade had the flu and thankfully they did not get it) and we headed off, completely unprepared to be induced. I was totally thrilled as you can see in my last bump picture I made hubby snap just hours before we left for the hospital. In all seriousness I was a bit terrified because I had never been induced before. My labor with both my boys was easy and naturally progressed without needing any drugs, although I did have an epidural.

When we got to the hospital, they gave me 1/4 of a pill to start induction and boy did that sucker work. The doctor had warned us that sometimes it can take up to 5 days to get your body to start labor and because I was not dilated at all and not even close to being ready, it could take awhile. But the contractions started rather quickly and came closely and somewhat strong all night. The standard protocol is to give you another dose of this medications 4 hours later to hopefully have your body keep dilating. Our nurse and doctor kept coming back and saying, “your contractions are still too close together to give you another dose.” They kept checking and my body was dilating so those contractions were doing something. By morning, I was ready to walk down to the labor room. They assumed we’d start pitocin once I got settled in the labor room but my body just knew what to do and they didn’t have to give me anything.  I was thinking this might be my natural labor. I had had an epidural with Kai but it didn’t take well and I felt everything so I felt like I could maybe do this one naturally.

That idea went out the window when I thought my water broke and told the nurse. She checked and looked alarmed, running to get the doctor. Apparently it was not my water breaking but gushing blood, so much so the doctor said it could be a placenta abruption. Definitely a few scary moments there. They immediately called the anesthesiologist and placed an epidural so if need be they could rush me into an emergency c section without having to knock me out which requires intubation. Thankfully the baby’s vitals stayed consistently strong and they let me continue laboring. She came quickly, with barely a push and was my tiniest baby yet, 6 lbs 9 oz and just adorable.

I think it’s fun for the hospital team to not know the gender, they were all making guesses as we got closer. The doctor asked my husband if he wanted to be the one to announce the gender, which he eagerly agreed to, not knowing at the time the pressure that was going to put on him. When she came out he said, “It’s a……….” And then just stopped talking!!! It took him a few seconds to gather his thoughts/figure out what he was looking at, meanwhile I was yelling, “it’s a WHAT” and he replied, “WIFE, it’s a GIRL!” Cue instant tears. Never in my life have I experienced that feeling. It was magical and exhilarating. I had tried hard over the last 9 months to prepare my heart to be a boy mom, which is a beautiful thing. Just one I had to work my heart into because I had always dreamed of having a daughter, it was my hearts desire. It’s why I didn’t want to know the gender, I wanted to be excited and thankful and filled with gratitude just for the simple gift of having another child not happiness based on a child’s gender and I thought I’d be better if I just saw the baby’s face. I very much guarded my heart.

In college when we were dating, I told my hubby at some point if we ever had a daughter she’d be Aubrey. Over the years he’s referred to our future daughter as Aubrey but we’d also started a list of baby girl names with our pregnancies never having to use them or dwell much on them. I didn’t give girl names more than a passing thought this pregnancy because clearly it was a boy and we’d named him Bennett. So after we’d settled in to our hospital room my hubby said, “so is she Aubrey?” Wanting to do my due diligence we made a list on the white board. We had it narrowed down to a few and then I told my mom she LOVED Aubrey and sent the 1970s song, “Aubrey” by Bread. We played it and that opening line started the tears. Yep. And Aubrey was her name. It’s a beautiful song, go listen to it.

What a gift! We all love her so and it feels like she’s just always been with us. Welcome sweet baby Aubrey and thank you Melissa for capturing these beautiful newborn pictures.