So, here it is mid-January and I am finally posting some favorite December pictures. It is hard to believe I am now the parent of a one year old. The time has gone so fast but I feel like it deserves some mention....

Hadley came to us in a blur of emotions and fear and uncertainty. My water broke (really a slow trickle) eight weeks before my due date. One week after Thanksgiving 2007 I was taken by ambulance to the hospital. At the time we thought everything was fine, I'll get checked out, get sent home and we'll be laughing about the scare he caused over dinner. That was simply not the case.

I spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, I was a wreck pretty much sums it up. It's hard to get into it all because I was so emotional at the time and we were so uncertain about how Hadley's health would be. I had been given a dose of steroids and the doctors hoped that would speed up the growth of his lungs to get him ready for his early entrance.

The plan was to induce me on December 17th, BUT, our sweet boy had other ideas....as he has shown us again and again before and since his entrance into the world. I went into labor on the 13th and you can guess the rest, He made his arrival on the 14th at 2am. After lots of pushing and groaning and quite a few "why do people have more then one child?!" he was here and he looked amazing. Our big worry was that we wouldn't get to hold him right away, that because of the prematurity he would get whisked away to the NICI (neonatal intensive care unit). But, with tears streaming we held our little boy, a miraculous 5 pound bundle who had come into the world 6 weeks early and fighting the whole way.  

January 2, 2008 Hadley was finally able to leave the NICU. Those three weeks he spent in the hospital were a continuation of our emotional rollercoaster. I cannot express how hard it is to leave your child everyday in a hospital no matter how much you trust and believe in the doctors and nurses. We wanted him home with us, the people who loved him most in the world.

So, this year 1/2/09 we celebrated Hadley's first year of being home and we thought of the other babies born premature who didn't make it home. We are blessed and fortunate in our life.

We wish everyone a year blessed with peace, good fortune, health, love and kindness.

Carol

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