The Story Of Ever

Today has been full of all kinds of wonderful. This little lady of ours will never stop amazing me. This morning she finally woke up for her dad and squeezed his finger. I was so sad that I missed it. Then a little later when I was discharged (heck yes, c section and in and out of the hospital in less than 48 hours! that's how I roll..) I headed over to the NICU and for the first time I finally got to see my daughter's eyes! I bawled and bawled. I keep promising myself that I will never take things for granted ever again, but I know it's human nature to not think about these things until they happen. It took me two days to see her awake, but I will carry that moment in my heart forever.


But our REAL BIG NEWS is that today Ever was taken completely OFF her breathing machine! Which means she is doing it ALL BY HERSELF and for the first time I got to see her whole little face. As of now they are thinking her catheter and suction tube will come out sometime tomorrow and after that the absolute only thing we are waiting for is the intestines to start functioning, then we move on to feeding.


Her doctors are truly blown away. This little girl has already accomplished more in 36 hours than most gastro babies do in 3 weeks. She is one hell of a little fighter, that's for certain.

Which brings me to her name. Many of you have been asking how to pronounce it or how we came up with it, which always makes me chuckle a little. It's prounced exactly like it looks--just like the word "Ever". NOT Eve with an "r" at the end. Lee and I had a heck of a time coming up with names we could agree on. When we found out the situation of gastroschisis we decided to try the approach of giving our child a name based on meaning.. strong, fighter, warrior, survivor..something along those lines. Welllll after realizing that meant our options for a girl name were choices like Bernadette we decided that may not be the best approach for the name situation. And then I read the Hunger Games series. For those of you who have read it you know the main character's name is Katniss Everdeen and she is the absolute epitome of a badass. Strong, fearless, a warrior. Now obviously I'm not going to name my child Katniss but the more I fell in love with her character, the more I pondered her name. Which lead me to Ever.

Then one night I had a dream. This happened a few weeks ago after one of my few "really scared about what's ahead" days. We chose not to find out the sex of our baby but that night I dreamed I had a daughter. I saw her, held her, and called her Ever. One of the nurses looked at me and said, "What made you choose Ever?" I looked up at her and replied, "Because it means always." The next morning when I woke up I looked up the meaning out of curiosity and sure enough--it indeed does mean always. And for some reason at that moment I knew. I knew I was having a girl and I knew she would be called Ever, as if that dream were telling me "Hi mom, this is me and I'm going to be ok." I told Lee about the dream and my very strong gut feeling that I knew the sex of our child. He didn't want to know what the sex was in my dream in case I was right and I "ruined it", so he instead had me write it and seal it in an envelope for him to open after this baby's arrival--I'm sure so he could give me a bad time if I was wrong. So sitting at home on our kitchen window sill is an enevlope with the words 'Ever Lucy' written inside it. And of course most of you already know Lucy is after my mom, her beautiful Nana. So there you have it.. "The Story Of Ever". Until next time.. <3