This is a picture of Avery at 11 days old. This was the day his eyes opened for the first time!

My darling Avery was born on Oct. 8, 2000 at 5:17pm. I knew there was something wrong in the morning, things just didn’t feel right. I told many Dr.s only to hear, “well, you are pregnant with triplets, you shouldn’t be feeling ‘normal’.” I knew something was up, call it mothers intuition, but I knew that day was it. I finally got a Dr. to listen to me, they checked and sure enough I was dilated and nothing was stopping it now. Avery’s water broke and it didn’t take long before he was born. When he came out, he actually tried to cry! Can you believe that little 1 pound 1.9 ounce little boy tried his hardest to cry. I didn’t see him, but I heard Eric say, “oh my God”. He was so tiny, my darling little first born son was so incredibly tiny.

He was a fiesty one, he had been the first one I felt move and kick while I was pregnant and he wasn’t about to stop for anything. I still hadn’t had Grace or Noah and was trying to hold them in to give them a better chance at life. Avery spent the first four days of life without me there with him. I would send Eric down to the NICU to check on him and bring me back pictures. He kicked and squirmed for all of the nurses. When I finally got to go see him he did the same for me. He knew my voice, and Eric’s too. When I would go see him he would move all around and set off alarms and make the nurses come running. I think he was saying, “look what I can do Mommy”. The nurses would have to come and turn all of his meds and vent down when I got there, but when I left, as soon as I told him I had to go, they would have to come turn everything back up. It just broke my heart to leave him everyday.

Avery looked just like his Daddy. Oh my, did he ever, from the tips of his beautiful hair to the tips of his big toes. I mean literally, his big toes! It still amazes me to this day how much a son could look like his father. Pictures don’t do him justice, what a gorgeous child. Of course, I may be a bit bias. Avery loved to be talked to and touched. It was like he thrived on it, so I never stopped talking to him when I was with him. He would hold my pinky and he would try to grab the vent out of his mouth. He hated that thing. I think one of the happiest days was when Eric called me, he had just been to visit him after work, and told me that he was still refusing the formula but he was accepting my milk. I guess most Moms’ take it for granted, but that was the happiest day for me, and again when he made a little poo.

Avery's heart valves did not close after birth and he needed to have surgery to close them. His vent was getting too small and was leaking. For the first time I got to hear his little cry. What a precious sound that was. The day before his surgery, the vent had to be changed. It was too much on him and he suffered a stroke. The next day was Oct. 24, 2000 and we had to go say goodbye to our first born child. I have no pictures of him without his vent in, by that time it was just too difficult for us since we had already been through the deaths of his brother and sister.

I won’t go into the things we did and said to him before his last breath, mainly because I want you to remember his life, in fact all three of their lives. Though they was short, much too short for any mother and father to bear, they are wonderful, beautiful and precious children of God. Avery was a blessing to us and taught me more in is 16 days on earth than I ever could have imagined anyone would. There will forever be a missing part of my heart that only Avery can fill and when I see him that glorious day, I will be whole again.