Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Today just like this week has not really gone as planned. It was pretty miserable to wake up on Christmas morning with only one of our babies in the house with us. Plus, our little Margaret has been so distraught the last few days with a virus in her lungs and all these new adjustments; she was up from 3:00 A.M. to 4:30 A.M. hacking and crying. Luckily, I was up pumping during this time anyway. Needless to say, we are all sleep deprived trying to pump every three hours and take care of our sick and confused almost two year old.

Anyway, like most parents, I had dreams of my precious daughter running down the stairs on Christmas morning to find her gifts from Santa with lots of joy and laughter. However, sweet little Margaret was more confused and scared than anything. She would not even walk down the stairs. She wanted Daddy to carry her down, and then she did not want to leave his arms even when she saw the gifts. (She is addicted to Daddy right now, wants him to hold her every minute of the day. See picture below.) She warmed up to the idea of gifts a little later and now is in love with her new retro kitchen. (I'll put up pictures when I figure out how to get pictures from that camera to this laptop.)

(Refusing to smile and clinging to Daddy's leg)

After a morning of opening gifts with our families, we got Margaret down for a nap and headed down to see little Wells in the NICU. One of the biggest hurdles for me to get over last week was the fact that Wells would not be home for Christmas. It just didn't seem right or fair. We didn't want to choose between spending time with our two year old and our nine day old. We all should be together on Christmas.

Even though Wade and I had to let go of our expectations, we are still blessed. We have two beautiful children here with us and one little angel with our Lord.

We also received the best Christmas gift. The nurse allowed us to hold our baby today! After nine days, I was able to cuddle with my little man.

. . . and give him a feeding of my own milk through his feeding tube.

(Yes, he is in a Baptist Hospital stocking.)

While I left to pump in the lactation room, Wade spent over half an hour loving on baby Wells . . . such a good Daddy!

Mommy and Daddy love Edwin Wells. It was so amazing to have my little man sleeping in my arms.

He was pretty tired after all that cuddling.

Wells is doing great! He was hopefully taken off of his extra oxygen support tonight. So he will be free of one more tube (the nasal cannula). Then he will just have to master his feedings by bottle or breast (if I am there) and maintain his body temperature, before he comes home.

We don't know how long that will take, but we were excited to find out that he was moving out of the critical care area of the NICU and into the step-down or intermediate area. So we took one last photo shoot of his pod.

Thank you again for all your thoughts and prayers. We are doing what we can right now trying to juggle all of these logistics and emotions. Luckily, we are all done with the stomach virus and hope to be illness free for a while now. Wells will be home soon and we can begin our life as a family of four. Can't wait!