Lights, camera, action...

Joshua, you may be in a commercial come Christmas time!  Last week, the small babies nurse came and wanted to know if we would be in a commercial for the holiday season to solicit donations to the hospital.  I thought it was a really neat opportunity and thought it was cool that they identified our family as one of the ones they wanted to be involved.  So we said yes and a lady from marketing contacted us.  The shoot was late this afternoon and was A LOT more involved than I expected.  They arrived with a HUGE crew of people!  They took up the whole hallway in front of your room!  There were probably at least a dozen people with all of their equipment.  It definitely was more than I expected. 

So the make-up lady did my make-up (which I'm a little anxious about) and the director told me what he expected from the clip.  The camera seemed the size of a small car!  LOL...no really it was about 4ft tall by 2ft wide by 3ft long!  In the room during the shoot there were two lights and the light guy.  Jane the marketing girl.  The guy who coached me on my lines.  In the doorway was the camera, the camera man, and an assistant. Then I also asked our nurse Laura and the small baby nurse to stay in the room and be close in case you needed help. 

It took a little bit of effort to get you situated in the chair with me because they wanted it facing the door and I usually hold you the other way around.  You snuggled really well into me.  You got a little cold because you weren't as bundled with blankets as usual and you weren't skin to skin either.  The line guy told Mommy to say each of the three lines 3 times in a row into the camera.  "My gift came early this year...My gift came early this year...My gift came early this year"  You get the idea...  Then the other line was "I already have my gift this year"  And the third was "He has two brothers and a sister waiting for him at home."  I did really well saying the lines till be got to the last one.  I started to get choked up and teary eyed as I talked about your brothers and sister.  They love you and this is really hard on our family.  I want you to be better and be able to go home to Abby, David and Jeremiah.  That just seems like such a long way off.  It seems like we will never get there.  I am very scared to get there too.  Scared because I have no idea what to expect, how you'll be at that point, what challenges you will face, how much assistance you will need.  I wish that our family could just be normal...that my present inside my belly wasn't "unwrapped" already.  This has been an overwhelming challenge for our family and I'm scared for what lies ahead.  I was able to pull myself together after a minute or two and continue and start my lines over with just a slight lump in my throat.  Who knew that simple line would pierce my heart as it did?!

I wish Daddy was here to see the set-up, but he is travelling this week for work.  In hindsight I wish I had someone take some behind the scenes photos.  Jane took a couple but they were just with her ipad.  I doesn't capture the whole picture but it is better than nothing.  We went through the lines  a couple times and then they were out as quickly as they invaded.

We'll have to see how it all turns out!  They were supposed to get some still photos, but the photographer went home for the day.  Hopefully they can come again.  I'm going to ask Jane.

Having some snuggle time after the shoot.