Happy Birthday Ashlyn

Twenty one.  I am going to say that again, twenty one.   That is how old my baby girl is today.  The same age I was when I had her.  WOW!  Half of my life has been spent as Ashlyn’s mom. 

Everyone seems to know Ashlyn’s amazing journey.  From a blessed surprise to a little Miss Bossy Pants to incredible fighter to this that we have now.  A beautiful, bright young woman ready to take the world by the hand and enjoy.  Being this girl’s mom is an unending gift.

Ashlyn was conceived on the one day that Danny was home between a training mission in Panama and a seven month deployment in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.  I was a size 2 when Danny left and seven months pregnant when he came home.  A week before Ashlyn was born; I was at a regular doctor’s appointment.  For seven months, I was weighed on the scale in the left hall, on this day; I was weighed on the scale in the right hall.  It showed that I had lost weight.  A flurry of activity had me in an examine room with a doctor that I had never seen before telling me and Danny that I was starving my baby.  I was put on bed rest and was instructed to eat high fat for a week.  Danny was instructed to take me to dinner and then take me home.

Oh, that dinner was in the top ten of suckiest dinners.  Have you ever been nine months pregnant?  Than you will know what I am talking about here when I tell you that I could not eat all of my delicious Alli’s meal.  And Danny, bless his heart, had no idea what it was like to have an Ashlyn scrunching everything up inside of me; he just knew that I hadn’t eaten all of my meal.  He just knew that a Dr. Major had said that I was starving my baby.  And there in Alli’s, he made me cry.  I knew I had been eating.  I knew that I had good weight gain for nine months.  I knew that I was always weighed on the other scale. 

Fast forward one week and several Dairy Queen treats later.  We were watching Rosanne.  I peed my pants.  Well, my water broke, but I thought I had peed.  It was 9:15pm and we were both pretty freaked out.  I did not go to prebirthing classes.  I did not want to go alone.  Right or wrong, I felt like going without Danny wasn’t ok.  So we really weren’t sure what to do next.  There were no contractions but because my water broke, it was off to the hospital. 

Ashlyn was in no hurry and the labor had to be moved along.  Danny was sleepy and would nod off while I needed him to help me breathe.  It is funny that I have been able to breathe all by myself for twenty one years, but that night, I couldn’t remember to “who” after three “hees”!  We eventually figured it out and with the help of the nurses, found a rhythm and managed to successfully have a baby.

Ashlyn Elizabeth White.  The first new born I ever held.  And they let me take her home.  We got Wendy’s on the way home from the hospital.  I remember sitting in our little one bedroom apartment with my single with cheese, ketchup only meal, Danny beside me on the couch and a little peanut of a girl in the car seat next to me.  I had no clue as to what I was supposed to do next.  But that is the great thing about mom hood, you just know.

Though we never found out, we both knew that we were having a girl.  Danny had dreamt of a little tow head named Ashley.  I, having been a lifelong viewer of Gone With the Wind, felt that Ashley was a boy’s name, and not a very manly boy at that.  So that began the search for a name similar.  Hence Ashlyn, it means of the Ash tree.  Elizabeth, Ashlyn’s middle name is my middle name and her grandmother’s confirmation name and her great grandmother’s middle name. 

So, twenty one years old, today.  I am really at a loss of words to describe this young woman. 

Ashlyn is remarkable.  Truly.  She is brave and sure.  She is faithful and strong.  She is beautiful and proud.  She is smart and silly.  Being her mom has been one of the greatest honors of my life. 

Happy Birthday Ashlyn!!!