the best prizes in life come early - 6 weeks early!

September 7th, 2008 - 8:20 pm (that's 20:20 miltary)After only 25 minutes (!) in labor, Mattea gave birth to a beautiful 5.1 18" inch princess 6 weeks earlier than expected. Addison Kay Pavlick has some red hair, one dimple so far, lonnnnggg legs, long fingers, my forehead and nose, mattea's lips and chin! So basically, the cutest baby ever.

The fun started around 7 when they said we'll probably have another 2 hours or so. Once we dismissed everyone to go grab some dinner, we had to call them right back....Addison was coming and there was no stopping us. I got in the room and we began. Everyone would be really proud of mattea....for all the pain she had been in for the last 3 weeks, she gutted it out and fought like a pro. What she fought for was her "prize in the end" - our daughter.

As most of you know, there were a lot of "ifs" surrounding this impending birth. Would mattea have to go to UAB and not know any of the doctors instead of the ones she has known her whole life? Would something go wrong with the pregnancy given a 6 week premature notice? Once Addison was born, would she have to be air carried to UAB and have to leave mommy and daddy behind? Becaue of all your prayers, the answer was a resounding NO to all.

The visual of a baby coming into the world is a great moment, don't get me wrong. But I couldn't focus on that. I was more worried about keeping that cold washcloth on my wife's forehead. The moment that no one really picks up on is the moment the doctor puts the baby right in front of the mother. I was lucky...i didn't look at Addison then; I looked right at Mattea. My friends, I now know what "true love" looks like and i swells my heart typing this.

Chaos/Fun then ensued as the doctors and nurses cleaned her off, laughed and joked while my beautiful wife, 5 feet away from the baby, looked at ease and was finally relaxed. There is a great story about everyone with their ears outside the door listening for the cry of the baby. Once they heard it, everyone celebrated except one person, my dad. He leaned closer to the door. To him, the moment was not over, he needed to know one thing. All of a sudden, inside the room, he heard the newborn mother laugh. Dad pulled away from the door, sighed, looked at Mattea's father and said "Now, its ok, my girl's ok." I will probably always remember my dad for that one moment.

My big moment came when I got to hold Addison and they opened the door for me to go to the nursery. It may have only been 15-20 people but it looked like the subjects lining the grand palace just to get a glimpse of the new princess. I placed the baby in the nursery and started tickling her and talking to her when I looked at the nursery window. There were faces everywhere. it's funny because i could not have paid them to do this again but everyone fit perfectly in between everyone elses faces. Tall people above small people and middle people in between. They actually looked like the muppets! The only exception of course was matt (uncle buck) standing on his tipeetoes giving me the Borat thumbs up.

Of course, if you know me, this night was for everyone else. I spent a good majority of those next 2 hours letting everyone hug and hold my wife and see the princess. I just wanted to watch and see what joy a 5.1 lb girl to bring to everyone in the children's wing.

Finally, it was just the family. Pavlicks and Crows. Everyone got to take pictures and hold her. When she got to me, I did my 1-2-3s and ABCs. Guess what? She perked up and listened as if to say, now I know who's doing that. Friends, that moment was the greatest moment of my life to this date. Me and my wife and our child all getting to know each other for the first time.

For the rest of the night and today, its been dress up central and show-off after show-off. She is definately a little miss priss. But i appreciate all our friends and family stopping by and calling us to wish us well. I know you all want to help and I'll give you a tip how: Definately call/post/visit and let us know you're still praying for us but the honeymoon of the baby will wear off for a lot of people. Its the people that call and visit in the next couple of weeks when the baby has been here longer that will really make the difference.

I will try to post pics to the blog tonight/tomorrow. Thanks for all the prayers as mom and addison get to leave the hospital tomorrow. This truly was/is the miracle baby!

BP