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DOVER, New Hampshire (WMUR) — A wedding is usually the biggest day in someone’s life, and so is the birth of a child.
Imagine celebrating both of those in 48 hours. Ariel Vaillancourt and Andrew Lavoie from Dover managed to make it all happen.
“At first when I was at the hospital, and they were like, ‘We’re going to have to send you to Mass General to deliver,’ I was like, ‘I can’t have this baby. I’m getting married in two days.'” said Vaillancourt.
Vaillancourt and Lavoie were getting ready to say, ‘I do,’ when Vaillancourt got unexpected news: a dangerous condition called preeclampsia would force her to deliver their son Connor, 10 weeks early. The couple’s wedding was less than 48 hours away.
“Honestly, I didn’t even think about the wedding until later on,” Lavoie recalled. “It really wasn’t something that I really cared whether it happened or not.”
The rehearsal dinner was set for that night. The guests were in town from near and far. And Ariel insisted — Andrew would be there to welcome them.
“I was a wedding coordinator for, like, ten, ten plus years, so I said it’s all paid for, all of the vendors are showing up. Our families are already here from, you know, all over the country,” Vaillancourt said. “(I told Andrew) just go and have a good time just because I can’t be there and Connor can’t be there. I still wanted my family to be able to go and enjoy it.”
So that’s what Andrew did. Turns out, Ariel was at her wedding too, just maybe not in the traditional sense. She appeared virtually on her big day from her hospital room.
The nurses at Mass General made sure the day felt extra special from the hospital room — making her a bouquet, putting signs up, even offering to do her hair.
The NICU nurses on a few floors down made sure Connor was ready for the big day too, making sure he had a suit to wear.
“It just was really a team effort for those nurses upstairs,” said Eleanor Angus, a NICU nurse at MGH. “It was sweet down in the NICU; we kind of tried to make Connor’s room feel more like a nursery. So, we made him a name sign with all of his birthday stats on it, like his weight, all that fun stuff. We took some memory-making things for them so they could take footprints home and just kind of celebrating the fact that they just had a baby.”
A healthy baby boy, a wedding, and the week of a lifetime that this couple will never forget.
“I just think it’s very important for people to just realize that even though life can be hard sometimes, it can all work out too,” Lavoie said.
“Stay grateful for what you’ve got, even in the worst situations,” Vaillancourt added.
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