Count Down To a Year

For the next several days we're going to take a little trip down memory lane. For a year now I have been photographing Gabe with a puppy given to him by his Aunt Amy at birth. We are just 16 days from one year. So, here's to 16 days and counting.

3 days old

He was just three days old. It was Friday, February 13th, and we could not wait to get out of the hospital! I was sick and tired of being told what I could and could not do with my baby. I hated the nurses taking him to the nursery  all the time for testing and so I could "get a break" (I hear this changes for some moms after child two comes). I didn't want a break! I just wanted my baby with me. Wanted to hold him and kiss him and rock him.

Not saying it was all peaches and cream. I mean, I was learning to breastfeed which was challenging to say the least, and Gabe's merconium (baby poop) was like a well of black oil that just wouldn't quit gushing. I was terribly uncomfortable from having given vaginal birth to an 8 pound 15 ounce baby and going to the bathroom was a 30 minute ordeal. And, poor 6'4" Daddy had to sleep on a tiny hospital chair that folded out into a bed that was approximately a foot shorter than he was. But, really, compare that to 18 and a half hours of labor, and it's just no contest. He didn't really have much room to complain (no pun intended).

But, man at night (when the nurses weren't circling like predatory hawks) and I had Gabe with me in bed and we snuggled and slept together it was just so amazing.

And, finally after a mountain of paperwork and switching out carseats because the carseat we had planned to use was past the manufacturing date allowed by law Gabe and I were wheeled out to the circle drive in front of the hospital and we were free.

Free to go home and spend the next eight weeks wondering how we were ever going to make it through the incredible amount of stress, worry, sleep deprivation, and a multitude of other painful things that really aren't appropriate to go into detail about.

In case you weren't aware....we did make it.

And, for the next 16 days we will recap just how amazing that journey has been.