Sleeping Babies

If you had told me two years ago how good it feels just to carry a sleeping baby, I would have tried to believe you, but honestly would not have been able to relate. I'm not sure if it's genetic programming kicking in, or just the momentary relief of not having to entertain, nourish, and run interference for a toddler while they are asleep on your shoulder. Probably a little of both.




Hannah may look innocent standing in my shoes (below), but she quickly proceeded to rip out the gel pads and liners, and I've pretty much given up on gluing them back in until she gets bored with shoe disassembly. Gotta pick your battles.




I put up an outdoor swing (thanks, Troy!) for Hannah a couple weeks ago, and it's her new favorite pasttime. Now that the weather is more amenable and consistent, she's spending more time outside exploring the backyard (when she isn't in the swing). The trick is getting her to come back inside without making her cry.



You might notice a bruise above Hannah's right eye in the two preceding pictures. We were playing chase and she took a corner a little too wide and slammed into a doorjamb with her forehead. She was laughing and squealing as she ran, and for a couple seconds after the impact she was on her back, still laughing. Then she decided that this pain stuff isn't very funny and wailed for a couple minutes.



I'm gathering video clips for Hannah's next movie, but haven't had time to put them together yet. Maybe next week.

I almost forgot . . . here's a shot we got when we left one of the baby gates open during last week's Shuttle launch.

Healing

The first few weeks of our NICU experience, after Steven had passed away and before we had any real sense of how well Hannah was doing, my all-consuming fear was that we would go home empty-handed. There was not, and still isn't, much chance that we could try again. Hannah was our only hope, and nobody could tell us that everything would turn out OK. I am a planner, and had already started thinking about what we would do and how we would try to cope with such devastation, and of course I had no answers.

That made it particularly heart-wrenching to learn, several months after Hannah came home, that some friends of ours had experienced that very scenario, several years ago. I am ashamed to admit that I didn't even know at the time that they were going through such turmoil, though I worked side by side with the father. Our jobs took us down separate paths shortly afterward and we lost touch without ever knowing what they had gone through.

Their daughter slipped away after four months in the NICU, on July 15th of 2002, exactly five years to the day before our Hannah was born. By further coincidence, their daughter's name was Hannah.

In those first few weeks of our NICU stay, I knew that if our Hannah didn't make it, it would take us years to even begin to heal. We started our blog partly as a healing tool, to cope with Steven's loss and potential challenges that Hannah could face. We gained strength from those who followed the blog and propped us up with encouragement and kindness when we needed it most.

So I was glad to hear recently, from our friend Shadan, that she had started a blog to help with her own healing and to help others who have experienced the loss of a NICU baby. If you have a minute, please stop by her web site, at http://shadanferdousi.blogspot.com, and forward the address to anyone you know that might be interested.