The Story of Avery

On Sept 26th, we took the medications at home to induce our cleaning process. I underestimated the emotional and physical toll that taking the medications myself would have on me, and in hindsight, I wish we had chosen the surgery. Oh well, I couldn’t have known. Before we took the medications, Evan and I spent time praying together, and saying our goodbyes. We also had spent the last several days deciding on a name for our sweet child, which we felt strongly about doing as a way to honor the life God gave us. We finally chose the name, Avery “Miracle” Chiu. We chose Avery for 2 reasons - it means “wise counselor” (or hysterically, it has a 2nd meaning of “rules with elf-wisdom”). We love the meaning of “wise counselor,” as it has been the comfort of the Holy Spirit that we rely on for direction, for guidance, for meaning in this, and we are believing that this situation will also bear fruit and allow us to minister to others. Secondly, Avery is a unisex name and since we will never know the sex of our baby on this side of Heaven we thought an androgynous name represents that well. We also consider this to be our miracle baby since we weren't supposed to be able to conceive without fertility treatments, and we are so thankful for that blessing. Now, I know that Miracle is quite the unconventional name, but we didn’t have to be concerned about Avery being teased on a playground in Heaven. We weren’t able to find another androgynous middle name that we felt fit Avery well, so we went with Miracle. :)

Anyways, after much emotional distress and physical discomfort with taking the medication (I’ll spare you the details), we took the medications and went to bed. Unfortunately, after 12 hours, we determined the medications did not work. The doctor called in a second dose, which Evan brought me and we tried again. This time it worked and I spent the next five days fairly out of it under all the medications. We had to call in to the doctor to ask for more pain medications a few days in, and everything took longer to pass then they had promised. So, again, if I could do it over, I would chose the surgery, but you live and you learn.