Within days of finishing writing my last entry for AWC, we
found out that Little Dude had stopped growing in the womb. And then the doctors found out that S
was actually losing fluid.
Apparently it wasn’t too much of an emergency though and the doctors decided to
induce the next morning.
There was a flurry of activity as we prepared that
night. My husband had to call in
to work to start his paternity leave. Bags were packed. I packed, unpacked, and then repacked
the diaper bag. Jon installed the
car seat. I wish I could tell you we went to a movie or out to dinner or
something, but honestly, I can’t remember. That night is a fog in my memory.
The decision to induce S was made after our vet closed for
the day, so as soon as they opened, I called and got our dogs into
boarding. We made it to the
hospital by 10 am that morning and Little Dude was born at 11:15. At S’s request, we didn’t go into the
delivery room and I never actually got to say goodbye to her. It makes me sad, but I wanted to
respect her wishes.
The staff at the hospital was amazing. They brought us back into the nursery
to see Little Dude as soon as possible.
I took one look at him and just burst into tears. It was so overwhelming to know he was
here and he was healthy and he was perfect. As soon as he was warmed up and they gave him his shots, we
got to hold him and feed him his first bottle. He was almost four weeks early, so he was tiny - barely out
of the preemie weight range at 5 ½ pounds. But he was (and is!) beautiful and perfectly healthy. The hospital let us room in with him
that night at the hospital.
Because of his low birth weight, we had to wake him up to eat every two
hours exactly. We didn’t have any
problems with it though. The nurse
told me the next day that he was the only baby she had ever seen that gained
weight in the 24 hours after he was born, which made me very happy.
In the almost eight weeks since he was born, Little Dude has
completely changed our lives. Everything is more complicated, including grocery
shopping (trying to fit everything we need for the week in the cart around his
car seat) and going to the movies (gotta find a sitter!). We’re going on our first road trip as a
family in a couple of weeks so 8 hours in the car with him should be
interesting. But we are so in love
with this little boy. Every time
he smiles or coos or turns toward my voice, I melt all over again.
The legal stuff is going pretty well. At this point, it’s just a waiting
game, but we don’t have any reason to believe that it will get held up. That’s a relief, but not as big of a
relief as getting that finalization will be.
We’re inching closer and closer to our happy ending. It hasn’t been all easy since he’s been
home, but he is worth it.
Thank you for coming along for the ride by reading our
story!
Until next time,
Angie (and Little Dude,
asleep in the baby wrap in front of me)
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