Amelias Birth

May 25th 2011

I woke up that morning like it was anyother morning. Sarah, David, Aubrey and I hung out did some shopping and joked about it being the day as we had the whole time Sarah and Aubrey had been there. On and off I had been having contractions about 10-15 minutes apart. They werent that bad so I just brushed it off and we laughed and got excited as we anticipated Amelias arival. As the day went on my contractions got more regular. We started getting really excited and hoped that it would be her day. I doubted myself part of the time wondering if it was really contractions or not. Maybe I was just thinking I was since we were all so anxious. At about 5pm Sarah kept looking at me and asking me if I was okay. I had to stop and kind of take a few seconds because my stomach was tightening and it was obviously uncomfortable. I went on a walk with David trying to get the contractions to hurry up and progress so I could go to the hospital, it was around 7 or 8 when we finally decided we should probably go. I was so nervous because I wasnt sure if they were real ly contractions, I was afraid of looking dumb, but went anyway to check just in case. By the time I was all checked into the hospital, the contractions were so mild and far apart it was like they werent there at all.

As I went to check in the hospital staff was kind of rude and made me feel stupid because I was a first time mom and made me feel even more like I didnt know what was going on and I doubted myself more and more. They hooked me up to monitors and checked to see how far I was dialated. I was only 1 cenimeter and my contractions were very mild on the monitor. They detected that Amelia wasnt moving much if at all, and I hadnt felt her for quite sometime so they sent me to get an ultrasound to check her movement. I wasnt sure what all would happen if she wasnt moving, I figured they would want to induce my labor and get it started. I was very scared and nervous going to the ultrasound. The lady had to get called in specially for me and wasnt very happy about it. I sat there with a full bladder for 30 minutes very worried about what was going on. After I was done the tech couldnt tell me the results, she just printed off pictures of Amelia and sent me back to my room.


We waited about another 30-45 minutes for them to finally get the results, I wasnt too nervous, I expected them to probably keep me over night and induce my labor so it couldnt be that bad right? wrong! My doctor and the nurse who barely spoke english came in and told me they would have to do and emergency c-section because the chord was wrapped around her neck. I couldnt understand her and her and David had to repeat themselves a couple times for me to hear. My heart dropped and I started balling my eyes out crying and screaming no! I tried to fight them and they literally had to hold me down to get the cathiter in and to get an iv in. The nurse used the wrong needle and I was gushing blood. If you know me I cant handle blood so I my panic level rose even more. I continued crying and telling them no! I was so scared. This was not how I had planned it.


The wheeled my bed out of the room to the surgery room, David wasnt with them, he had to stay behind to get scrubs on. I kept asking them where is David? They said he would be there shortly after they did the medicine in my back to numb my lower body. I was shaking and crying and felt so scared and alone and forced to do something I never wanted to do. They had a lady stand in front of me to hug and hold onto while they did the medicine and then I layed back, I continued to ask where my husband was. I got sick and was puking, I kept apologizing. Finally after it seemed like hours but was only a few minutes, David came. I felt pressure on my lower stomach and then I heard rushing around behind the curtian, but no cry from a baby. I was terrified, finally I heard her. I was so happy she was okay. They brought her over and showed her to me and David, then rushed off with David and Amelia. I had no idea what was going on. They took me to recovery for 30 minutes, on my way out I thanked everyone for being there and for taking care of me. while in recovery I talked to the nurse all about how excited I was to get back to my room and hold my baby. She was very nice, but spoke very little.


It was time to go back to my room. As they wheeled me in I saw Sarah, Aubrey, and David, all almost crying. I looked around and didnt see Amelia. I got worried, but thought, maybe they were still cleaning her up. Everyone left the room and David said he needed to tell me something. I thought Amelia had died. I held my breath and waited for him to tell me. He cried and told me she had a hole in her heart and she was having trouble breathing and that she may have down syndrome. I sighed out relief she was alive and shock in all that I had heard. She was supposed to be healthy, she was supposed to be "normal". I wanted to cry but I wanted to be strong for David so I held it in, he is always strong for me in my weakness, he rarely shows his weakness and hurts, so I knew I had to do it this time for him. I asked to go see her, they told me no. David went to see her and Sarah video taped him with her. I couldnt watch it right away I was too hurt. A while later they came in and told me she would be transfered to Crouse Hospital in Syracuse two hours away. I couldnt go with her and I had to stay in the hospital. I was devistated. They brought her in real quick before they took her away. I held her for about 30 seconds and It was the worst feeling I had ever had in my life. It was supposed to be a beautiful happy moment holding my daughter for the first time, but i felt none of that. I felt hurt and worry and the hardest to admit is discust. I was discusted with my own daughter. This isnt the baby I had dreamed of and thought of for so long. That baby had been taken away, it felt almost as though I had lost my baby. I still loved Amelia because she was mine but I felt angry that she was the way she was. Admitting this now is one of the hardest things for me to do, its embarrassing and I feel shameful, but I feel like I should share the truth.

That night I called crouse hospital several times and asked how Amelia was doing. I asked if they were loving on her and if she was stable. They said yes and that comforted me knowing she was being taken care of. I asked if she had eaten and they said she wouldnt be allowed to eat, but they had her on an iv that gave her nutrients she needed to hold her over until she was allowed to eat.

I was so sad and I couldnt sleep. I was in pain and they didnt do a good job at keeping up with my medicine to keep me comfortable. I remember David laying with me in my bed and watching the end of American Idol, I was mad Scotty won and not Lauren. Then finally I fell asleep. About 30 minutes later the nurse came in and woke me up and said I had to get my cathiter out and then made me walk to the bathroom, my first time walking and I was so sick and i almost passed out, I was swarmed with nurses in the bathroom and then I made it back to my bed. It was hard to fall back asleep, i was sad and hurting and just wanted my baby. I guess I kept asking where my baby was and why she was gone. In the morning Sarah bought me a frame for my ultrasound picture of amelia and a bear to hold since I couldnt hold my baby. I held it from the second I got it until I left the hospital with Amelia from Syracuse. The day after I had Amelia I had to take a shower and I almost passed out again, I begged David not to tell the nurses because I just wanted to leave and be with my baby. He didnt tell he just helped me finish my shower without passing out and made me feel better. Finally they let me go. I had to walk to the car and it took a while and it hurt really bad. Every bump in the car made me cringe. We decided not to ride home to get anything because the roads to our house are way bumpy and would have killed going over them. So we left with no clothes or stuff to stay a while in syracuse, we would figure it out later.

bringing me my baby to hold for the first time seconds later she was gone.

My Birthplan

I was going to have Amelia at Samaratin Medical Center in Watertown New York, but my doctor was havind issues there and informed me of a hospital closer, smaller, and much nicer alot closer to my house, so I agreed to have Amelia there instead.

I wanted Only David, my mom, and possibly my little sister Amanda in the room.
No photos or videos of the birth.
Natural birth, but with an EPIDURAL!! ASAP!!!!! (LOL)
I wanted David to cut her umbilical chord.
I didnt want her getting shots right away.
I didnt want her leave mine or Davids sight, If she had to leave the room I wanted one of us with her at all times.
I wanted to wear makeup on the way to the hospital so when picture time came around, I looked halfway decent. (small something to help me feel better)
I had a focal point picture of me and my sister Amanda to help me think of someplace else when I was in extreme pain.
I took classes to know what to expect and to learn how to breathe.
I wanted people to come visit us with flowers and "Welcome Baby Girl" balloons.
I wanted to leave with my new baby girl I had been dreaming of for months in her outfit I had picked out and packed for weeks.
I wanted to walk out of the hospital feeling like I was complete and happier than any person could ever feel in their entire life.
Everything was planned out and would be perfect.....
I wanted and PRAYED for a safe and easy delivery.
I wanted and PRAYED for a healthy happy baby....

My Pregnancy

When I found out I was pregnant, I had been working at Target for about two months. I loved my job so much and was even working towards getting promoted and learning different jobs there and eventually becoming a shift leader or manager. At about 7 weeks I started getting horrible morning sickness but it lasted all day everyday. I could barely eat anything and I was absolutely miserable! I hated it. I was home alone all day and didnt have anyone to support me and help me except obviously family over the phone. I ended up having to quit my job because I couldnt even make it out the door to get to work without throwing up all over the place, and they kept sceduling me to work in the backroom which I couldnt do because it involves heavy lifting and climbing ladders which made me nervous that I would fall and get really hurt. David had to go to training in Lousiana for a month called JRTC. I felt so alone and bored and sick and crazy for the entire time! I had my doggy, my many amazing family members for hours a day over the phone, watching movies, and baby planning to get me through it. My morning sickness finally ended at about 5 months pregnant. Thank God! It was the most miserable five months of my entire life that far. Other than the fact I lived a million miles away from friends and family, I did everything anyother pregnant woman does. I took belly pictures, I went shopping and bought cute baby stuff as soon as I knew she was a girl, I planned out how I wanted her room to look, picked a name, ate healthy food, wondered what she would look like, made a birth plan, took birthing classes, took a tour of the hospital, had a baby shower and a ton of other things.








Five months pregnant

Eight Months Pregnant ( I look bigger than I actually was)

I also made a video for my sister and posted it to facebook of me dancing to Justin Beiber. :)

My baby shower my wonderful friends from FRG put together with my momma from afar!

9 months pregnant at my baby shower.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, Amelia was positioned down and very very low, it was soo uncomfortable. A few times I couldnt feel her moving and got really freaked out, also had pain that freaked me out, the hospital Samaritan in Watertown (you will hear me rant about them later) told me several times that I was dehydrated, even though I was drinking a billion gallons of water a day so much that I literally, no joke was peeing every 15 minutes. So... They were wrong.

It was probably 3 weeks before she was due, they had me go to get an ultra sound to check the growth, because my belly was so small, I wasnt worried at all, it runs in the family. At my next doctors appoinment they informed me she may have a small heart murmur, nothing to be overly concerned about, but to let her pediatrician know after she was born.

I was getting concerned That she was going to be early and my mom wasnt going to be there until the 28th so David and I wouldnt have anyone there to support us. I talked to my Momma Sarah (Davids wonderful beautiful stepmomma) about it and she and Dave(Davids dad) decided it would be a good idea for her and Aubrey to come to our house to be there just in case Amelia came early and to help us out. Best decision ever. Amelia came about a week later.....May 25th, 2011. The end of my pregnancy and the start of a whole new chapter of our lives, our story took a turn I never saw coming.

Life Before Amelia

Ashley: I was young and happy and love make up, doing hair, shopping, singing, pretty much anything music. I loved performing and being crazy and having fun. I liked mostly anything girly and pretty and had alot of time to do all of that stuff.

I still acted like a kid, that I think will never completely change. I am a kid at heart and I think I always will be. I wanted to be a social worker and also get some kind of degree in music. I wanted to be a missionary and I definately wanted to go back to New York City for an internship or at least another missions trip. They will always have my heart even if I dont make it back there.

My sister was my life, and still very much a huge part of it, she is my best friend in the whole world and I can always be my fun crazy self with her even when noone else understands and thinks we are phsycotico!!

The summer David deployed I spent almost everyday with Amanda and we went to concerts and had tgifndt which is thank god its friday night down town. and made music videos and had a yard sale and went swimming at my pool and hung around doing all kinds of fun things, after all it was my last summer home with her for a long time.

She is still my world, I just dont see her as often as I would like to.

David: He was in the ARMY. deployed to Afganistan.

Rarely did I get to talk to him on the phone, but I waited and had the phone attatched to me at all times no matter what I was doing.

He wanted to go to school for missions after he got out of the army and also do some kind of trade to make money to support us. He liked playing guitar, and lots and lots and lots of video games.

Im not the only one with a goofy side! :) David is just like me, a child at heart, and I know for a fact that will never ever change.

When David got back from Afganistan we had to reconect. After all it had been almost a year since we really had gotten to see and spend time together. A trip to Alaska to his dads house brought us closer together and also made us decide someday that is where we will go and live.

We loved eachother, another thing that will never change. We had a tiny temporary apartment, it was kind of creepy. but it worked for us. afterall it was just the two of us. we didnt need anything spectacular.

Usually our day went like this,

David woke up, went to work, came home for lunch, went back to work, came home for dinner, spent time together and then to bed to sleep until the next day to start all over again.

I would get up shortly after David left, clean the house, sit around the house bored all day waiting for David, make dinner and wait some more for David cause he was usually working late, and then finally eat dinneer and spend time together until bed and then start all over again the next day.

We finally got our puppy lover butt! ZOEY! She kept me company but it was the same routine.




We both eventually wanted to have 3 or 4 kids, hopefully 2 boys and one girl.

but not for a while. We wanted time to mature and also to have time to have fun together without the worries and stresss of kids.










We still liked having fun and being kids together. We took hikes and went on drives and found ways to make everyday an adventure!

David and Ashley

David and I started dating very very young I was like 12 and he was 13. It was on and off alot, but realize, we were very young and relationships are hard for most 25 year olds to handle, so to be a teen and try and have a serious relationship is very hard. Bottom line, we loved eachother, always have and always will. He lived in Middleton which is about 45 minutes drive from where I lived in Boise. It was hard because alot of our relationship was through phone calls and text messages, or notes and pictures we would write back and forth. Most of the time we only saw eachother at church and youth events. I will say, both our parents were very good at allowing us to do things outside of church together whenever possible and although not completely ok with the fact their children were so young in a relationship, they did their best to be and stay supportive.

I had known I loved David and eventually hoped to marry him, but it was the summer before he left for bootcamp that I knew for a fact I would marry him. We spent almost everyday that summer together. We went on bike rides, went to parks, watched cartoons, spent almost an entire week or two trying to fix my broken down car, and we did anything to be together as much as possible. I was supposed to go on a missions trip to New York and that week I got a horrible kidney infection to the point I felt like I couldnt even move. David took off work to come and sit with me and take care of me. He brought me food (even though he barely made enough for gas money), he watched tv with me, he played board games with me, and even though like I said, I had loved him all along, that is when I knew. He encouraged me to make a decision about my missions trip and I finally chose go which was an amazing decision, it was by far one of the most life changing trips I have ever been on.

By the end of the summer David had made his decision to join the Army and we had very little time left before he would leave we had alot of planning and discussing to do before he left for training. We decided when he got done in the spring we would get married, we took engagement photos a month before he left.

While he was gone we communicated rarely through phone and daily through letters. We talked about moving the wedding to winter while he was home for break so that we could be together the entire time he was home and so when he was done with training we would start our lives together. I planned our wedding with the help of both our familys in short 3 months.

We married in the court house December 23 2009 and had our wedding December 27th 2009.

It was a small wedding but everything I could have wanted. I loved everything about it. Especially knowing the rest of our lives we would be together.

Background and Where Everything Began

First off I would like to say I am horrible at writing, I am aweful with words. I cant seem to get them down exactly the way I would like or how it sounds in my head before I write, or in this case type. Im not very good at spelling or at using proper grammar or punctuation. What I am good at is feeling emotions, and trying my best to express them in a way to share my story.

I married my awesome husband David Duncan on December 27th 2009. He had come back from basic training for the Army for Christmas Break, or as the Army calls it, Christmas Exodus. We only had a small amount of time before he would have to fly back to Georgia to finish bootcamp, so we decided there was no better time than in that short two weeks. We were excited and anxious to see where we were to go in the next four years as a military family.
In February, David graduated basic training and I flew to Georgia to be there for his graduation. I was so happy to finally see my new husband and spend as much time with him as possible before he moved on to his next school, Airborn School. I stayed in Georgia for about a month with David while he did his school and then flew back to Idaho to be home in time for my High School Graduation.
David still had alot of training to do. He was going to be a Ranger. He made it throught the training but at last minute, they had to cut him due to a security clearance. God had other plans for us. He was told he was going to be stationed at Fort Drum , NY. Plans changed very quickly when they decided to send him almost immediately to be deployed to Afganistan. I got to visit David in New York for a very short amount of time and he got shipped out.
I spent six months in Idaho while he was deployed. It was better for me to be home surrounded my friends and family than to go to a place I didnt have anyone. It was a long hard six months for the both of us, but we made it through.
When David returned I packed up and flew to New York to finally start our marriage, being together made it so much more real. We had to for the first time learn how to live together and combine our different backgrounds to figure out our own way as a couple of doing things.
David works alot. Long days and sometimes into the evenings. I was at home all day and lonely alot of the time. That is when we decided to go out and get our first baby, our border collie Zoey Happy Duncan. She was my buddy and went everywhere with me. She is like a daughter to me and definately count her as a part of our family. We thought that that was what we needed to complete our family for a very long while. We didnt plan on having our own children for at least four or five years.
I found out I was pregnant in September of 2010. It was not planned, but we were still very excited, nervous and deathy afraid to tell my parents. But to our surprise, they were all extatic! Of course we jumped on planning and thinking of names for either boy or girl. In January of 2011 We found out we were having a baby girl and decided on the name, Amelia Amedy. It is a beautiful name with a amazing meaning. Amelia means; hardworker and Amedy means; One who loves God. and that is exactly how we wanted her to be raised, a hardworker, strong willed and definately growing up with a passion to love and serve the Lord. It was very hard to go through my first pregnancy away from home, with now friends or family around to support me or even to just go out shopping for fun baby girl things like most women get to do with any pregnancy, but I was determined to try and stay possitive.
David was supposed to be deployed the month I was due. We were very nervous about what was going to happen, if he would be able to be there for the birth of his first child and to support me through labor and delivery and the weeks that followed. We stressed for months about it. finally April rolled around and David had to have surgery on his ankle from previous injuries from his last deployment and had to stay behind to have time to heal, he was going to be a late deployer and leave after his ankle had complete time to heal.
All throughout my pregnancy Davids work was very good about letting him make it to most of my doctor appoinments and being there to support me. One day I passed out at the WIC office due to low blood sugar and they let him off work to come sit at the ER with me to make sure I was ok. It was near the end of my pregnancy I had to have an ultrasound to check the growth of the baby because my doctor wasnt happy with the measurement of my stomach, small stomachs while pregnant run in my family so we didnt even worry one bit about it. One day I had to go alone. The doctor told me that at the ultrasound I had to check Amelias growth, they saw something that we would want her pediatrician to keep an eye on after she was born. They thought she may have a small heart murmur of some sort but it was nothing to stress and worry about, just good information to let the pediatrician know after the baby was born. I was so scared and worried but everyone talked me down to a calm state of mind and I decided it was not something to worry about and that God was going to protect her, we would pray for a strong healthy baby and delivery. Little did I know, my plan and expectations for my pregnancy, my delivery, and my child and her life and ours were about to be completely forever changed.