January 2, 2007

Well, I am still here----but so is the baby. Yesterday afternoon I started having contractions. I tried to relax in hope they would go away. They kept on coming though and it didn't take long to realize they weren't going to stop.

Jaska and I were remarkably calm--but I'm sure a part of that was shock. Once we realized there was no stopping it we just kind of looked at each other and said, "Okay--let's do this." We felt so blessed to even have made it through the week. We knew our baby now had a chance and we again turned it over to God. There was simply nothing else to do. We couldn't stop it or change it or decide how healthy or unhealthy our baby would be when he arrived--everything was in God's hands.

Our second little boy arrived at 7:35 pm on New Years Day. Again, another poignant date. He weighed 1 lb. 9 oz. and was born at 23 weeks and 3 days. A team of NICU doctors and nurses were right there in the delivery room and whisked him right away. Considering how small he was, the labor was a difficult one. The lack of fluid combined with his position changing at the last minute made things a lot more painful than expected. I was trying to stay lucid, but it was a losing battle.

We got to go and see him a little while later in the NICU. He is so tiny and fragile. He is perfectly formed, just tiny. He has a lot of bruising from the delivery. He shifted at the last minute and ended up coming out bent in half. His neck, chest and arm are quite bruised. That was the scariest part for me--seeing him banged up like that.

I felt totally numb upon seeing him for the first time. I was trying to feel something, but I think by that point my body and mind just shut down. It was very frustrating. I felt so dead.

This morning my head was much clearer and I was able to feel the joy I was missing last night at having a new little boy.

He doesn't have a name yet, but that's mostly because we wanted to see him first (and because we've given virtually no thought to names). We'll pick a name for him soon.