Nicole's Ramblings for 1/10/2011

Again, I have been volunteered to write the blog. I am starting to understand why Drew wanted to do this in the first place. It's kind of therapeutic to put your feelings down on paper - or screen, as the case may be. Thank you, husband, for letting me share. You're the best!

.

This is what we saw when we walked into the NICU today. Those eyes seem to stare right through us. It's amazing to watch him change every day - even throughout the day. Now that he can focus on things near his face, he sees us. When we talk, he searches for us. He will lay in our arms and just stare for as long as we will let him. It's awesome!

.

Now that he's eating more, David's turning into such lazy kid.

Check out this yawn!

Good thing his parents are kinda lazy! We can't wait for the day that we can lay on our couch and stare at him lying next to us. Or take a nap on the bed, look over, and stare directly into his sweet, giant eyes. One of my favorite times of the day is right after eating when he starts to drift into his "milk coma". His eyes roll back, his lids flutter, and he smiles. I know it's just gas or a reflex or something, but it still melts my heart. I like to think that he's smiling at me. :-)

I love this. Another of my favorite things is watching Drew with David. Each day I am more and more amazed with the man I married 4 1/2 years ago. Words fail me at this point.

And now an update on David:

Yesterday, I actually got to nurse him! I can't tell you how happy this made me. After 3 weeks of watching my child lay in a bed, recover from surgery, and be attached by so many cords and wires, I finally felt like I was a mom able to provide for my son.

However, the doctors think he was having trouble digesting my milk - thus leading to the runny & bloody stool. Today we stopped giving him my milk and switched him to Similac. I would be lying if I said I wasn't sad about that. I really want to give him the best that I can, which I think is my milk. But if it hurts his little tummy, we'll do whatever we need to do to fix it. There is still a bit of blood (the docs think it should clear up in a day or two), but his stools were much more normal looking (you know, I never thought I'd be so excited to see baby poop!).

He went down 2 ounces in weight from yesterday. Our goal now is to get the scale going the other way and fatten him up. We're hoping the formula with more calories will do that. He looks so tiny with all the weight he's lost (about 1 pound so far, but on such a small body, that's a lot!). Please continue to pray for David's recovery, weight gain, and digestive system.

If you could also say a prayer for Drew and I, we would appreciate it. This is our life now, and we wouldn't trade him for the world. But sometimes it's hard. Sometimes we can't help but wonder what if...Then we look into that beautiful perfect face, and the what ifs dissapear. We are so in love with this little person we created that we can't really imagine it being any different. David is such a strong kid with a beautiful heart. We should know - we've seen it! We can't wait for him to grow up to see who he will become and what he will accomplish.

So, Drew and I were talking the other day after a comment was made along the lines of "Why would God let this happen?" I'm not sure why I feel the need to share my stance on this, but here it is:

God didn't "let" this happen. This isn't happening to punish us or David. It's not because we didn't pray enough or we didn't follow the commandments to the letter. At one point, we lived in a perfect world (I refer you to Genesis). Then Eve had to go and eat that darn fruit (women!). We have completely screwed up our society and turned it into something totally opposite of what God inteded for us. I don't think that God planned for or wanted David to have a broken heart. I think that's just something that's happened b/c of what we've done to the perfect world that God created. God knew that David would need people around him that would love and support him. He was put into our lives because God knows the strength we have - even though we usually don't. People keep telling us how strong and amazing we are. We don't see it that way. We're just trying to be the best parents we can be. We're doing what any parent would do for their child, aren't we? If there is something our boy needs, we will do everything we can to provide that for him. It's not being amazing, it's being a parent, and that's all we want to be.

I guess I should quit rambling now and go to sleep. Tomorrow is another day we get to spend staring at our beautiful baby boy. Have a great night everyone!