Alexandria Rose

Oh, Allie. My Squish. My love. My poop monster. My everything.

I thought I knew what love was until I had my daughter. It wasn't that "the moment I laid my eyes on her I fell deeply and madly in love with her" like everyone is always spewing. It took some time and a lot of hard work for me to realize how much of a huge impact this small child has had on my life.

Alexandria Rose Burmeister was born April seventeenth two-thousand and twelve. She was eight pounds fifteen ounces and twenty-one inches long. She was a hefty baby but she was mine and she was perfect in every way. Matt was away on a deployment, he left when I was four months along and didn't return home until Allie was two weeks old.

Moments after she was born. Matt was on that phone listening to everything.

At the time I was living in Ohio with my mom at her house. Things were so chaotic at first. I barely slept, I was so sore, and somehow my perfectly organized room was trashed within a few days of her being home. I felt like a wreck and I missed my husband. Thankfully I had my family there to help me. I still recall one of the first times I had a complete meltdown, it had been a LONG day and my normally happy baby was really crabby and even a tubby, which normally relaxes her, made it a million times worse. I was trying to dress her and I was looking down at her, she was hysterically crying and so was I. My mom knocked on the door and saved me. I left the room and just wept, I cried because my baby was upset and there was nothing I could do but I was also crying because I couldn't believe my life was this different.

Just a year ago I was a carefree girl, running around and doing whatever I wanted. I took nothing seriously. I loved working, the money was okay but the people kept me going, and I was just getting by in college. I refused to move with my husband because I didn't want to give up the life I had in Ohio. I know it was a very selfish thing to do and looking back I can't believe how blatantly selfish I was but at the time it was what worked for me. Wow, did things change when I got pregnant within the month of moving in with my husband. Everything went from being about me me me to being about our baby, which at the time we were positive was a boy, ha.

The first half of my pregnancy was a whirlwind and pretty much horrible. I had terrible morning sickness (it should be called all day sickness!) and Matt was stressed and busy with his upcoming deployment. I traveled from North Carolina to Ohio and back a few times and wow those trips were unbelievably bad!

The day Matt deployed I realize two things, I had to be strong for my baby and I just knew she was a girl. I could feel it. When I was bawling and couldn't get myself together I swear I felt a sense of calmness, like someone or something was telling me it would be okay. I know it sounds crazy but at that moment I knew she was a girl, she was caring, loving, and hopeful.

The deployment went by a lot easier than Matt's first deployment, even though we weren't able to talk as much as we did with the first one. I felt grounded and calm most of the time, although pregnancy turned me into a person full of rage. I wanted to fight everyone and everything and I'm kind of happy Matt wasn't there because he's my favorite person to start arguments and fights with.

The pregnancy was going really well, I didn't have any complications other than having pica. Oh my, that was bad! I would stay up at night crying because I wanted to eat soap! I would scrub the floors with mass amounts of pine sol just so I could have a reason to smell it. Other than that I loved feeling Allie moving around even though she loved to kick me in the ribs really hard.

Allie has always been a big baby, she measured two weeks ahead throughout my whole pregnancy and now at four months she's twenty pounds. It's no wonder though, I'm five foot nine inches and Matt is six foot three inches. We are big people so I expected a big baby although my OB thought she was some kind of giant monster baby, ugh.

Thirty-Eight weeks

The day I gave birth was amazing. It was the day after my older sister, Chrissy, birthday. My family had went down to the cafeteria to get lunch and before they left they asked the nurse if I would be pushing anytime soon "Oh no, we're hoping for a 7 or 8" WRONG! The doctor came in, checked me, and it was time to push! I was pushing and calling my family and trying to email Matt to call me. The doctor said my family reminded him of the Kardashians, I didn't know whether to take it as an insult or a compliment. I gave birth about fifteen minutes later and that's when the fun started. They couldn't control the bleeding and ended up putting a balloon in my uterus after trying to get it to stop for almost two hours.

I was too happy to finally have my baby in my arms to even care, I was high on every emotion. Allie was a champ at nursing and she was perfect in every way. Ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes. I loved that little girl so much and every day I love her even more! I can't believe it's been over four months since she was born. We are now settled down in North Carolina after a long vacation to Ohio, my mom brought us home last week.

Sometimes I still can't get over how much my life has changed though, for example, I've been trying to write this post for the past two days but Allie has some kind of sixth sense and wakes up from her naps every time I start typing. I look at her and how precious, amazing, and beautiful she is and I know this is so worth it. She is worth everything and I will do anything to give her the best life I can.