* Joshua's Journey: Due Date!

Today was your due date. It was a bittersweet day for Mommy. You have come so far in the past 3 and a half months, but Mommy's heart wishes for what should have been. I should be meeting you for the first time, spending some one on one time with you, cuddling and breastfeeding you. Even though we got to meet you early I still feel like I haven't spent much time with you. I am constantly saying goodbye. So I wanted to be close to you today and I decided to snuggle with you and spend the night with you. Daddy left around 11pm so he could go back home and get a good rest before work. I stayed for your midnight care and held you and breastfed you. Then I held you through your 3am care and our nurse just gavaged your feed. For about 5.5 hours we slept and snuggled; it was a nice and greatly needed time. I put you back in bed shortly after 5am so I could get back home and see Daddy before he left for work, pump then take a quick nap before I started the day.

Grandma Weide was in town and so the older three had to be dropped off at friends' houses so Grandma and I could visit you and then so Daddy and I could visit you. We are so thankful for all of our friends who have offered to help out especially now since your siblings can't come and visit you with flu season going on. That has definitely been an answer to prayer! Mommy and your brothers and sister stopped what we were doing one day to pray about this together. It stresses Mommy out to figure out where to bring the older kids so that I can come and see you. It scares me that if people don't step up and offer that I may not be able to see you. Or if I have to come in the evenings when Daddy is home from work then I will never see Daddy and that is not good for our family either. Finding a balance has been very difficult on everyone and is one of the greatest stresses on our family.

I was at the hospital about 14 hours (spread across three separate visits) on your due date; it was a long day with little rest for me, but truly needed. We have missed so much time together Joshua. Time where you should have been hearing my heart beat and feeling the warmth of the womb. I've said this before, but I wish you were my first so I could spend more time at the hospital with you! Now, I am trying to make it in for two care times so I can breastfeed you if you "cue". Generally you do better with the breast than the bottle which Mommy is very happy about, but that means that I want to be there at the hospital so much more than is physically possible. I'm trying to coax them to allow me to BF you more than twice a day...because breast milk is best...oh wait...breast milk is best only if it is fortifed and fed through a bottle...don't start me on that one...or on "cue based feeds." That will be a post for another day. I can't wait till you are home and I can carry you around the house...might be a little tricky though if you are attached to oxygen and monitors.