Happy Birthday Ashley Marie Tiede

January 7, 1988 was the day that I became a Mommy for the first time.  Ashley Marie Tiede came into the world as a 5 pound 7 ounce 17 inch screaming bundle of joy!  Her arrival came at 6:21 pm on a Thursday in Lafayette Indiana.  I had landed in the hospital because of preeclampsia on Monday prior to her birth.  I remember calling Byron and telling him that I had just seen the Dr. in Rensselaer and he was sending me to Lafayette to see a specialist.  Never thinking that I would end up in the hospital I drove myself down there.  I was seen by Dr. Mentzer at the Womans Clinic and I will never forget the words he said to me.  "Mrs. Tiede, I am calling the hospital and making arrangements to have you admitted.  You are not getting out of the hospital until your blood pressure comes down or you have a baby".  I was 21 years old and scared beyond belief!  Before the days of cell phones, I asked if I could call Byron.  I was able to reach him at the egg farm and I told him he needed to come to the hospital when he got off work.  There was no need to hurry but I did need him to be there with me.  I remember crying when he got there and crying when he left that night to go home.  It was the first night since we had been married that we had not slept in the same bed.  I recall asking him not to leave but duty called and he had to work the next day so...there I was in the hospital, alone and completely out of my mind with worry.  Scared to go through labor, scared that I had done something to harm the little baby that was growing inside me and scared to become a Mommy.   The next day pretty much passed with no events.  The blood pressure was under control with medication and the Dr, had decided to see what would happen if he stopped the IV.  Well, it medication was stopped and sure enough the blood pressure began to climb again.  Thursday morning the Dr. came in to check on me and told me he was going to break my water.  UMMM "No" that was not happening without Byron being with me.  He assured me that Byron would have plenty of time to get there and that labor would not be immediate.  Agreeing to go through with the procedure I completely freaked out when they broke out this tool that looked like a giant crochet hook!  The whole process took less than a couple minutes and the water was broken but no contractions.  At noon, Dr. Mentzer decided that an IV of pitocin would do the trick,  This time I stood firm that there would be no medication given until Byron arrived.  He did arrive shortly after noon and the IV was hooked up.  Contractions began and got more frequent.  I remember nurses coming in and out of the room for several hours keeping a close eye on the fetal monitor, making sure that baby Tiede was not having any distress.  At about 4:00 I recall a kitchen person coming in with my dinner and saying, " oh, you're in labor, you can't eat this food"  Byron agreed to finish it off for me!  At about 5:00 Byron's Aunt Millie just happened to stop by the hospital for a visit.  I recall hearing them in the hallway having a conversation.  Byron told she and her daughter Cori that if they would go get some food, that we would most likely have a baby by the time they got back.  Sure enough he was right.  I remember the Dr. asking me if I wanted pain medication in the form of a spinal block and I said heck no...I was not fond of the idea of having a needle stuck into my spine.  I would endure the labor pains and have this baby naturally.  The pains did get closer and more intense and I remember being extremely relived when they said I could push.  At that point it really didn't take long and at 6:21 pm our beautiful baby girl arrived.  She was tiny, far smaller than I had ever seen a newborn baby, but the Dr.s all said that she was healthy, just small.   Looking at her I couldn't believe she was mine (ours) but mine....  She was beautiful, well not really she was little and wrinkled and had one perfect spot of blood right on the very top of her head.  This is a fact that Cori still reminds me of today!  We didn't have a name picked out and I just looked at Byron and asked him why we didn't have a name selected.  It doesn't seem to me that we sat around and tossed names out there.  Part of me thinks that we didn't do that because of Byron losing Candy and Allison in the car accident.  I think he was afraid to give her a name before she actually arrived for fear something would take her away from us.   To this day I am not really sure where Ashley came from.  Marie is a middle name that is shared by many of the Tiede / Cade granddaughters.  Marie is Byron's mothers middle name.  I remember waking up at 10:30 and getting out of bed.  I walked down the hall of the hospital and ran into a nurse who asked me why I was up and where I was going.  I was going to the nursery to see my baby.  She told me I had to go back to my room and that the baby was fine.  She mentioned that she loved the name we had chosen.  Name?  What name?  To my knowledge there had been no name chosen for her.  She said, "your husband is in the nursery rocking her and calling her Ashley Marie.  Ashley Marie?  I guess it did have a ring to it,  and I remember walking back to my room and writing the name on a napkin that was on the night stand beside the bed.  Ashley, Ashleigh, Ashlee,,,how was it spelled?   It was just a few minutes before they brought both she and Byron to my room.  They were both perfect, and I could tell that Byron was head over heals in love with her.  We decided on Ashley because we didn't want people to have to guess how to spell her name and Ashley was the most common spelling at the time.   Friday January 8th, my mom and sister came to the hospital to see us.  They didn't stay long and I was disappointed when they left but they returned later with clothes that they had bought for her at the toy store in the mall.  The sleeper that I had picked out to bring her home in was 3 sizes too big for her tiny little body.  Thankfully cabbage patch dolls were still the rage in 1988 and Ashley would be well dressed for the first year of her life because of that.  There was a lady who lived in our town, not far from us, who made doll clothes and I was able to buy enough outfits to dress her very well for very little money.  My favorite outfit was a little blue jogging suit that had the fisher price logo on it, it is stored in the hope chest at the foot of our bed and on January 7th I know that I will pull it out, wipe a couple tears away and thank God for the beautiful woman that she is today at the age of 23.  Yes, 23 years have passed and I am not sure where they went.  I can see many dates, like the date of her birth, very clearly in my mind.  Other dates just seem to be a blur. Together we had many ups and downs.  Ashley never disappointed us.  She was a handful at times but nothing that couldn't be dealt with.  She was hard to discipline because she learned at an early age to hide emotion.  I remember at times intentionally trying to make her cry because I felt like she needed to and wanted to but just couldn't.  I always knew if I made her cry I had gotten my point across.  Today Ashley is a beautiful young woman with a wonderful career as a respiratory therapist.  She has found the man that she will be spending the rest of her life with and will marry him on September 24, 2011.  Her life is really just beginning and I can honestly say that I can't wait to see what God has in store for her in the next few years!  I love you Ashley Marie Tiede, you are the joy and light of my life!  I pray that every dream you have comes true and that you will always know how very much you are loved!