Newborn News

Four Weeks Old

*Welcome to you due-date, Little One!
Okay, technically, your due date was yesterday.  I had big plans to get this post up on your actual due-date (not that it really matters, but I thought it would be possible because it happened to fall on a Sunday... and surely I could find time on a Sunday to get a post up, right?).  But you had other plans.  Big plans.  Unhappy plans.  Plans of getting sick and being rushed to the emergency room as a bluish-grey lifeless little sweetheart, struggling to breathe.  But now I have some time... now I have time as I sit by your bed in the pediatric ICU in a yellow gown.  I'll admit that I've pulled the face mask down so my nose is free... I can't stand the wet, warm air that circulates inside of it when it's worn correctly.  It's there to protect me from whatever virus you may have... but I figure you and I have been so close that we've probably already shared it.  The gloves, too, are not being worn.  I tried typing with them, but it was frustratingly frustrating.

Your life is no longer in real danger.  Your skin is pink again and the oxygen tubes in your nose are giving a little extra punch to each shallow breath you take.  You are sick; there is no question about that as I listen to your rattly breaths, hear your tight coughs, feel your warm head, and wipe the mucus out from under your nose.  I could invest time in worrying... but the last two months seem to have depleted my stores of worry juice.  I'm just... numb.  Yesterday after Brian called from the ED with the news that you were, indeed, going to be admitted, I parked the car in the Hospital parking garage with no more emotion than I would had I been parking at the grocery store.  I simply nodded my head as they told me you were going to the pediatric ICU and will need to stay for an indefinite amount of time (but no less than 48 hours).  And now, I shrug my shoulders as I sit in this one-way air flow isolation room next to you, dressed and feeling like one of the characters in Monsters Inc. who deal with the contamination from small children.  Well, I think, this seems to fit about right with the way my life has gone lately.  But... I don't feel like thinking about this now (who am I and what have I done with myself?).  So let's, instead, focus on this first month of your sweet life and process this new, uncomfortable development a little later.  Deal?

*Pre-term babies sleep.  A lot.

Twelve Days Old

How lucky we've been to be able to cuddle your sweet little babyness for the last four weeks!  You had the right to stay inside and grow bigger in there, but I'm so glad you chose to come and grow bigger in my arms instead.  And, you've been so sleepy!  Newborns are always sleepy... but this was sleepy to a new level.  I can hold you, snuggle you, change you, burp you, lay you down, and you sleep.  Sleep through it all and sleep through it always.

Ten Days Old

It's been a mild fight to wake you up enough to eat consistently.  But, as much as I love the sleepiness (just because you're so snuggly when you're sleeping), I adore those eyes when they open wide.  I have yet to get a beautiful picture of those eyes (though I have plenty of snapshots of them!) because they don't stay out long - but we'll get there.

*Happy babies are the best

Four Weeks Old

We don't even have to work for your smiles.  You give them freely and often, and oh how we love them!  You are a sweetheart... mild mannered, calm, happy and patient.  Content to just be.

*But, sometimes happy babies don't like everything

Eight Days Old

 As was the case with your first bath.  Upon further experiences, we've decided that you just do. not. like. to. be. naked.

*But that didn't stop me from making you be naked for these...

Four Weeks Old

...even though you were very grumpy about it.  (Is that the most adorable grumpy face you've ever seen?!)

Four Weeks Old

You eventually fell asleep, but grunted and groaned the whole time.

Four Weeks Old

I told you that you're just going to have to get used to it.  Posing for pictures is the price you pay for being my cute son.

*You have upgraded from your laundry basket

Twelve Days Old

We haven't yet upgraded to an official crib... that will come after we move.  But a pack 'n' play is serving you quite nicely.  A home nurse came for a visit last week and we laughed together that you had been sleeping in a laundry basket for the first week of your life.  "Yep," she said, "I can tell this isn't your first child!"  Being a mom to my first child was amazing, wonderful, new, exciting; and being a mom to my fourth child is just. plain. fun.  Experience has taught me a little better about what things to worry about (babies turning greyish-blue and lifeless like you were yesterday, poor thing), and what not to worry about (sleeping in laundry baskets).  I feel so much more relaxed and calm than I ever have to a newborn in the past.  And I love it.  You are so beautiful - and I don't feel bad for one second just sitting down to hold you when my other jobs are not complete.  I'm finally starting to understand that the chores will never (ever) be done but that you, Timothy, will grow up way, way too fast.

*Babies have magical healing powers

At least, Timothy, you do.  Life has not really been easy around our house lately.  We've had heavy workloads and broken hearts (figuratively and physically).  Sicknesses, sadness and pain.  Hospitals and healing.  But it felt like you created this beautiful shield of protection when you were carried through our doors.  A protection made from the fibers of love and sweetness and utter dependence.  The first minute you were home, Daddy set you out on a blanket in the family room and he and I stood staring at you.  I choked up a bit and thought about how perfectly you fit... right there in that blanket, on that rug, in our house, as the newest part of our family.  And the following weeks proved that fit was even more perfect than I thought.  How is it that we can add a whole entire human being into our family and feel like the only change is that we're happier?  Kinder?  More loving towards each other and better?  You joined our family on the Lord's timeline (left entirely up to me you would have arrived a couple years down the road) and I can't help but wonder if the Lord knew I would need you now.  That I would need a giant dose of sweetness and love to heal me from the raw emotions the past couple of months have left me with.  And that you were the only one who could bring enough of it.

Please get better quickly, my dear.  I love you and I need you back in my arms and in our home to do what you do best...

Heal.