The Fastest Week Ever!

That's what I feel like this last seven days has been...the fastest week EVER! Luke was born a week ago...and yet, is still just 39 weeks. He's doing amazingly well and we are so grateful! I was worried about possible NICU time, but we were just so blessed with good health and no NICU need from the start!

We went to the pediatrician yesterday and Luke had gained back 3 oz. since we left the hospital. He was 5 lbs., 10 oz. when we left the hospital and was 5 lbs., 13 oz. yesterday--which was only 3 days!! Needless to say, he's eating well, we think. It's hard to tell with a breast-fed baby, especially with a lazy little feeder, but he's gaining appropriately, pooping and pee-peeing appropriately, and doesn't seem to be starving so we guess all is well. As I found out after Matthew died, I'm good at producing milk, and Luke enjoys the fact that he doesn't have to work much to eat.

Slowly but surely we are working on the effort he puts forth and it's discrepancy between the amount of effort *I* put forth!

Luke is such a good baby. Really...he is SO mellow. Dr. Sweeney said if he was anything like he was in utero, he'd be feisty as hell, and yet, he's SO not! He still moves around a good bit (when he's awake!) and is SUPER strong still (John said, "No wonder you kept saying 'ouch' and telling me he was strong! He IS strong!), but other than that, he's sooooooo mellow and sweet. He hardly fusses at all--when he is getting his diaper changed or we have the nerve to dress him in warm clothes. He loves, loves, loves being swaddled and we are actually double swaddling--a receiving blanket swaddle and then one of those cheater swaddlers that are totally worth the money for just the convenience of the middle of the night, if nothing else. He's pretty easy to console, and today, found his fingers so I have a feeling this will make consoling him even easier.

He sleeps a lot. A LOT. Most of the day. And night. It's just in the day, he doesn't seem to mind his bouncer or glider (LOVE his glider! Thanks, Jen!) and for some reason, at night, he'd prefer to be held.

I'm willing to oblige. He is just so sweet.

We've been calling him Little Bit or Little Peanut because he is just so little. I don't think I've held a baby quite this little. Even friends with twins had babies that were a bit bigger than Luke is now. I love how teeny he is and how snuggly he is when I hold him. I love that my voice and my touch calm him down in a way that others sometimes can't make happen. Obviously, I just love him. He doesn't have very many clothes that fit him--which is funny since he has SO MANY clothes!! That's ok; I know he'll be grown into them soon enough so I don't want to rush a single second.

Cloth diapering is going well and John totally became a true believer yesterday at the pediatrician. Dr. S. opened the disposable diaper we had on Luke (since we were traveling, John reasoned) and there were all these gel crystals from the diaper. Gross. John has since decided that even traveling, we can make cloth work. I knew he'd come around! He DID have a big blowout today, and John said, "Are these diapers going to do this all the time?" I think the issue was that Little Bit is a LITTLE BIT and it was, for lack of more polite language, a pretty wet and juicy poopy that went right through the his little leg hole because of his little chicken legs. It went all over John, the sofa, his blanket...it was quite humorous for us both. (More for me, since he did it to his daddy and saved his mama!)

Daddy wants it to be known that Luke is very photogenic. I second that. He smiles a lot and is pretty alert--when he is awake! John is loving taking pictures all the time, and so am I. Very easy to do a picture a day, which is my goal for Luke, as well as for this year.

The dogs are adjusting well--Dixie is really sort of the guardian--letting us know the baby is crying or whatever. It's funny that SHE'S the one who is doing this! Sam is wonderful with kids, but he has no idea of what to do with baby-babies and doesn't understand why the attention is no longer on him. He is even more bull-in-the-china-shop than he normally is, so we sort of watch him carefully around the baby. He'd never intentionally hurt him, Sam's just not aware of how big and goofy he is.

I'm tired. It's a good tired, of course, but I'm tired. Mom and John are around, which gives me some opportunity to nap some during the day, but when I try to sleep, my mind races and images come flashing back to me over and over. It's a story for another day. Still figuring all the emotions that go with these days out.

Luke, Luke, Luke how you are loved!!! We just can't even begin to tell you. Birth stories and doctor visit updates and more pictures to come....

YUMMY!

Mommy kisses me and I kiss her back!

Hello, bright-eyes!

"Am I wearing ducks????"

My mommy can't get enough of me!

On the way to the pediatrician. Am I cute or what?

I just finished eating! YUM!

Dixie is keeping watch...not sure of what to make of things!

Mommy says daddy is a baby-hog!!!

Some Pictures

Well...it's been busy, to say the least. We've loved every second. I want to write about the day Luke was born and so does John, but we're just now navigating life with a few hours of sleep, eating and diaper changing, so it might have to wait a few days.

Needless to say, it was a beautiful and wonderful day.

Again, we cannot say how loved and supported we've felt over the last few days...well, longer than that, really, but certainly in the days leading up to Luke being born and since. Thanks to everyone who has friended us or asked us to text about how Luke is doing--it's so easy to update that way, and these days, all I have time to do! In fact, as I type, my inbox has 1688 emails...my FB messages? 347. I cannot possibly express enough gratitude for the support and encouragement and just want to apologize upfront for not being a bit better about updating and messaging back. At least 3 times a day, John says, "I don't get it. I don't understand why so many people care. It's just unreal."

I don't know what to tell him, other than through tears, that it's obvious our sweet boys have already made big impacts on this little world. We are truly humbled.

I don't have the time to fully write all I want to, but I have to write this or else I may forget and I just hold what happened this morning so precious. Around 6 this morning, Luke was about to start a feeding. (Oh boy, feeding....but another day!) John was sleeping beside me, and it was just getting light. I was basking Luke in...amazed that this sweet little boy was in my arms and just so grateful to God for that very second. Luke was sort of waking up, half smiling, half rolling his eyes around like he was possessed...all in all, just making sweet little faces. We've talked about how much newborns smile in their sleep--make all these expressions--and we wonder what they are thinking of and dreaming of. Someone once told me that they really believed that in those first few days, they are still so connected to Heaven that the smiles and sweet looks are just reflections of that connection. I told Luke that I didn't know if that was true, but if it was, and he maybe...just maybe was somehow communicating with his brother, I wanted him to let Matthew know how much we loved him and missed him and were so grateful for them both. I kissed Luke all over, and kissed him some more and said, "If you can, please give these kisses to Matthew for Mommy..."

My sweet boy puckered back. It was as obvious and evident as anything I've ever seen--Luke puckered back and I have no doubt those were kisses from my Matthew.

Kisses from my boys this morning...the most precious way to start a day.

Speaking of precious...here are some pictures! They are of various times and dates, but just wanted to share some sweet baby Luke!

The Nursery...

How one room can go from the best and most hopeful place in your house to the place you dread so much you think you are going to throw up (literally) just because you walk by the door is beyond me, but part of all that comes with being a mother whose child has died. It never ends. Never ends.

I DID go in this morning, though. In the last few weeks it's been hard to face reminders. While every picture I have is priceless to me, they are all also so hurtful. To look at all the pictures just makes me ache to have him. It stings, physically. So, I've sort of tried to avoid them. Not totally, but enough to keep me from going insane with missing what I wish I had.

Same for the nursery. Matthew's room. Just typing that gives me such a lump in my throat and my eyes instantly fill with tears. I've pretty much avoided the nursery because it is just agony to go in there and know what should have been but never will be. I feel like my head will explode, it hurts so much. On one hand, I wish that I had the guts to just pay someone to go and remove every trace of anything in there because it just hurts so much. On the other, I can't bear the thought of any of Matthew's things being disturbed or gone because it's all I have left.

In thinking about this, though, and still sort of grappling with well-meaning people telling me they are excited about us going back to Shady Grove this year, I realize that the very thing I don't want--people forgetting that Matthew was born and lived, is our first son and can't ever be replaced--is the very thing I indirectly am doing when I avoid his pictures or his room. In not forcing myself to face those things because they hurt so much, I essentially am trying to forget Matthew. It's not Matthew, of course, but rather, the pain and grief that comes with missing Matthew. And yes, I desperately, desperately, DESPERATELY wish I didn't have to deal with that pain and grief.

But remember my new favorite word? Bittersweet? Well, here's another one of those situations. In saving my heart from having to face reminders of all the hope and joy of Matthew, I am robbing myself of all the hope and joy that was Matthew. I simply can't do that. To love him is to love him, period, and I'm just being sort of selfish when I avoid things that make my heart hurt. I've said this before and I mean it: If I knew that it would all turn out this way, I'd still, in a SECOND, do it again and again and again for the sheer bliss I've been privileged and honored to experience. If I continue to avoid the things that hurt, I continue to avoid Matthew, and he's nothing but love and happiness. It's because I love him so deeply that the pain hurts so much, but the bottom line is that I can't have one without the other right now. As that is the case, I refuse to lose one second of loving and remembering him, as painful as it is.

So, I went into the nursery...not for long, but enough. Enough to sit in the chair I never got to rock him in and to look at his name wall that he never got to see. Enough to see the changing station I imagined him wiggling around in and to see the hundreds of books I've been collecting and buying for him. Enough to look out the window that he would have looked out of and enough to dream about all that could have and should have happened in that room.

And that was enough for today.

My sweet little monkey, how my heart aches for you today. Please know that it's only because I miss you and love you so much that these things break my heart. I'm so thankful for them, though, because they remind me of the miracle of you. I'm just trying to get to where they don't hurt so much.

Things that make me smile...

...Matthew was going to have curly hair. When the nurses whisked him out of the operating room into the nursery, I saw the back of his sweet little head. His hair was dark, and he had lots...and the patterns were there and very wavy. He had his mommy's hair.

...I truly and wholeheartedly believe he knew he was loved and cherished. I sang to him, I rocked him...I even patted my stomach often as I would have patted his little back when he was born. I have no doubt that he could feel how much love I had for him.

...We had so many sonogram pictures, which are now priceless to me! We knew him so intimately.

...I saw him yawn at one of our sonograms. That picture is perfect and precious in my mind.

...how long he was! Mom said that the nurses were saying 22 inches!!!! We don't have the official birth certificate yet, but I totally believe he was that long. The picture, our 'rough' measurements at the funeral home really make it seem real. Then again....I knew he was long--I felt it!!

...how perfect his skin was! I joked that he was going to be one of those babies that had a lot of acne because *I* had a ton of estrogen and lost my once-great skin...yet his was perfect. I don't mourn mine as much any more because I was more than glad to give it to him.

...his chin! That's his mommy, Grandma Jane and Great-Grandma Gosnell's chin! I can only imagine the things he could have gotten away with using that little pouty chin!

...this picture...I'm so thankful that John was able to truly meet our son, and more thankful than I can express that he was able to hold his hand, and have Matthew hold back. This picture is one taken in the nursery before he was med-evaced to Georgetown, and I love it because it has John, Matthew and me--even if the 'me' is just in my name on Matthew's little wrist. I guess you can say that this is the closest thing to a family picture that I have...and it's incredibly dear to my heart.

Two weeks...

Today, in 6 minutes, my sweet little boy would have been two weeks old.

Why write right now? I don't know, really...I've had so, so many things I want to say and tell Matthew and then I remember that he'll never read the words anyway and the purpose of the whole blog-turned-yearly-book was for his memory...well, in truth, I figured he may be interested in it, but his wife would have probably been more interested in it.

His daddy wanted me to keep writing. This would have been his book, and his daddy wants me to finish through the end of the year at least as I planned. Of course, I planned to start his new book with new posts on January 1, and that will never happen. John has been an amazing, amazing husband (though I already knew this) and if this is important to him, I certainly can comply.

I'm not ready to write about the funeral, though the outpouring from our church, the military, my school, the community and total strangers was and still remains unbelievable. Frankly, it was a blur, and high in the competition for the hardest day of my life. I can say that many, many people have told us how deeply it affected them, and we again are touched by so many.
It's hard to believe it was just a week ago. And yet, it's been a lifetime.

We have been surviving...that's the best thing I can say. We have amazing family, friends and support from so many various groups of people. I am still in shock, though, and honestly go through periods of absolute disbelief to total and udder grip-me-to-the-core reality. It turns out that it was NOT a placental abruption that happened, but a condition called Vasa Previa. Rare, like being struck by lightning, and most times, devastatingly fatal for the baby and life-threatening for the mother. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Dr. Shonekan's quick actions not only gave us several precious hours with Matthew, but saved my life. Truly. Our nurse at Shady Grove told me she knew of one other patient where the baby was lost and the mother went into strokes and was very touch and go because it was not known about, as in my case. If you are to research this, as I've done a little, I can say with all honesty that there was no way this would have ever been diagnosed. I *had* the heavy monitoring because of his kidney condition. I *had* the color Doppler. Dr. Polko examined the placenta with the pathologist herself and said that the vessel was so tiny and so close to something (can't remember what) that no one would have ever been able to diagnose it without a crystal ball.

Friends, your comments and posts and thoughts have been truly what has sustained me. So many comment on my bravery and my amazing attitude and I want there to be no disillusion. I am shattered. I am not brave; bravery is facing it when you have a choice not to. I have no choice, my life has to go on. I have a husband who loves me and whose heart's desire is to one day again hold a son or daughter, and for longer than a few hours. For him, I'll move Heaven and Earth to try and make that happen.

And my faith? I'm SO trying. I promised God that even if the most horrible happened, I'd try my best to be one of those 'strong and inspirational' people who glorify Him regardless. I never, ever dreamed that He'd call my bluff on it, but that matters not; the miracle of Matthew is one that I must be forever grateful to God for, and keep my promises. And if I am very honest, Matthew was the answer to prayer. God was faithful. He existed, he lived and he was given to us by God.

Please keep us in your prayers. These are dark days. We covet your prayers and encouragement. There's much more in my head, but my heart just can't keep me writing right now. Instead, I'll post another picture from the amazing angel who photographed Matthew for us....This one makes me smile because it shows how LONG Matthew was....I've been saying that for a while! I have other pictures, ones that I'll try to post as my heart can bear to do so. Looking at them is so, so bittersweet.