A New Life Beginning

 Finally getting to this point is both exciting and terrifying for me.  I have five things that make me a high risk pregnancy person so being pregnant for me is hard to deal with at times.  Raising two very young kids while pregnant makes it even more interesting.  At least the entire time I was never put on bed rest so I feel blessed.

When I got called to go into the hospital I had it set in my mind how things were going to go.  I was going to have a nice normal birth, like with my other two children.  HA!!!  I think Heavenly Father knew that this little boy wanted a good story to tell so he gave it to him and just forgot to inform me until the end as everything was happening.

 At least our little man is now here.  I was forced encouraged to have him by way of C-section.  Something that was beyond terrifying and like receiving a death notice for me to hear.

 I did learn a few things from the experience.  One: My husband looks super hot in scrubs; Two: I'm glad he isn't a doctor or in the medical field at all (it is also scary to see him like that).

 Well after our little James was born he had to be rushed to the NICU.  Again, because of my high risk pregnancy he had to come early.  It was alright with how big he was but it also meant that his lungs wouldn't be fully developed in a way.  He needed help breathing and a few other things had to be monitored too.  I got to see him for a minute when he was first born but then I didn't see him again until I was up and walking.  Since I am such a determined person I was up much quicker than what the nurses or doctor expected.  This was the first time that I got to see him after my surgery.

 Poor boy was hocked up to a lot of machines and had a ton of wires and things going everywhere it seemed.  I asked a lot of questions as to what all of them where and what they did.  Thankfully the nurses weren't too annoyed with me asking so much.

 Even though he was in the NICU his size really made him look like he didn't belong there.  But he is still so little to me.  I especially love his cute little toes.

 He also had such adorable little hands.  They are just like his big brothers too.  As you can see in the photo, he has a bruise on his hand.  Actually he has that on both hands and it looked worse and worse as they days went on.  They had tried to get an IV through that vein but just couldn't so they had to put it elsewhere.

 A little after 24 hours of my surgery I was released but of course not James since he still needed the help.  We went in every day to see him for as long as we could but as a parent it really never feels like long enough.

He was born before Christmas but wasn't able to come home so my husband and I took Christmas to him or at least as much of it as we could.  He hospital was also really sweet and got him several Christmas presents as well.  This little ornament is one of the gifts that they provided.

The hospital also gave him this sweet little outfit that had a word tree on it.  We enjoyed everything that was written on it but the funniest part is that James will never be able to wear it.  It is a preemie size outfit.  When we held it up to him it would only cover half of him.  I still want to keep it but maybe make it into a special part of a project for him.  Not totally sure what I will do yet but hopefully I'll think of something that is cute.

I love to quilt for many reason that I wont get into right now.  There is a local quilt guild for our area that when you join each year you make and donate a "Linus" blanket.  We'll my son actually got a "Linus" blanket!!!  It is such a very special and meaningful gift to me that he received one of those.  After this kind act it makes me want to join the group even more and I really hope that I can too.

Finally, another tradition that I do with my kids for Christmas is take a picture of them by our Christmas tree.  Normally I have all of their gifts around the tree and then them next to it too but this year I was happy to settle for just a picture of our tree next to James and take a photo of that.  Honestly I would have taken the tree in itself since it is only two feet tall but I was pretty sure the nurses wouldn't be happy about me doing that.

Heaven is truly the very first moment you are able to hold your baby.  I got to hold him only after he was able to have one of his major health cords taken out.  Even though he was my biggest baby born, when I got to hold him I knew that even that big wasn't very big at all.

Heaven is also seeing your love for eternity hold you new little one too.  I just love these special father and son moments.

Now Seth and Sarah did come to the hospital, twice, to meet their brother but never got the chance too.  I still want James to know that they tried to see him so I at least got a picture of them in the waiting room area.

The very next day after holding him for the first time is when I got to feed him for the first time. 

Daddy had to settle for just holding him since I was mean and didn't share the feeding time experience with him.

The next day I was nice and just held him a ton.  Side note: This is probably the best picture I have to show off all of James's hair.

Daddy got to feed him the day after me.  Although we did learn that when James has his tummy a little happy he likes to quite and go to sleep which makes it hard to feed him.

All of the life supporting cords and wires are off!!!  I love that I can now see his face especially with how much the swelling went down too.  The nurses were so happy for him that they had fun styling his hair for the occasion.