A child’s patience is minimal. Trying to explain for 30-something weeks that their little brother just "wasn’t ready yet" was near impossible. The weeks slowly passed and finally, it was time.
The must anticipated meeting occurred a few hours after Izaiah’s arrival. My sister brought Z & E to the hospital to see meet their new sibling. We cleared the room, so it was just the 4 of us, plus our new family member. The kids crawled on the hospital bed with excitement and fear.
"He is SO SMALL!"
"Where are his feet?"
"Why isn’t he talking to me?"
"Was he born with eyeballs? OH there they are."
Each word said with love. They looked and touched him to make sure he was real. Izaiah laid their in peace, soaking in the introduction – occasionally opening his peepers to see what the voices outside of the belly look like.
Family is love.
"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together." ~Erma Bombeck
After 39 weeks, we had to induce. A crazy weekend of labor pains (pun intended in EVERY which way) led to Tuesday – March 16th as the birthday for our little Izaiah. A few complications, but nothing major – after 5 hours, our little I arrived. He is absolutely adorable, perfect in every way and FREAKISHLY looks like his brother E. See example a:
The last 5 days have been a whirlwind. We’ve tried to cherish every moment, poopy diaper, 4 am feeding and coo this little boy has made. The other kids are adjusting to now having 33% less attention. It’s all been quite humorous in regards to how little they know about babies.
Our first day home, Sean’s Dad brought dinner over. We sat down for our first "family meal". Z went out to the garage, we thought she was getting a drink out of the refridge. 5 minutes later, we hear pounding on the door. We opened it to find her with the booster seat. She wanted to get it setup so the baby could sit next to her at the table. It took a 5 minute cry to calm her down and explain that it would be MONTHS before the baby could sit at the table.
We all loaded into the car Saturday morning to visit the pediatrician for I’s 2 day post-hospital check-up. Z explained to the doctor how worried she was about the state of I’s feet. He comforted her and told her that’s how baby’s were born. Oh the things we’ve had to explain to her the last few days. I just know next week the teacher will send an email asking us to stop telling her things.
E is so excited about being a big brother. He wants to help however possible, minus dirty diapers. Each night he sings to the baby, Itsy Bitsy Spider and You Are My Sunshine. He begs for us to put I in the swing or bouncer so that he can show him their toys. We have learned we have to sit between them, as E doesn’t understand the baby can’t actually HOLD the toys yet.
I know we’ll have some major adjusting as we now are circulating around a newborn’s schedule. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. This new little face with soft skin and rockin’ hair melts our hearts.
Thank you Lord for this life and this family.
These are the days.
These are days you’ll remember.
Never before and never since, I promise, will the whole world be warm as this.
And as you feel it, you’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky.
It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you.
These are days you’ll remember.
When May is rushing over you with desire to be part of the miracles you see in
every hour.
You’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky.
It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you.
These are days.
These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break.
These days you might feel a shaft of light make its way across your face.
And when you do you’ll know how it was meant to be.
See the signs and know their meaning.
It’s true, you’ll know how it was meant to be.
Hear the signs and know they’re speaking to you, to you.
If you can’t tell, I kind of heart technology in a big way. With my first kid, the 3-D/4-D ultrasounds were way new and way expensive. The second, we had no idea of the sex and didn’t want to know -- so number 3, I knew we had to get a 4-D ultrasound. I am just about 34 weeks and to get a good picture, it’s recommended to have the ultrasound done between 26-34 -- so yesterday was the day.
We went to First Vu Imaging and had a great experience. The tech was ultra accomodating to me and my crazy kiddos. The room provided a nice comfy bed for me to lay on, there were couches for the kiddos and Sean, and a projector for the ultrasound. I knew we were in for an experience, but I had no idea.
Wow and tears is all I can say. We all watched in awe as we met little Izaiah in his current home. It was like a window peeking into his world. While he did look kind of like a claymation character in development, you could see him suck his hands, open his mouth, move around and hit himself in the head with his foot. It was totally surreal to feel this baby move inside my belly, see him on the screen reacting at the same time -- and having the kids jump up and down each time he did something so small.
Z and E haven’t stopped talking about it and have watched the video below over and over. My little E has demonstrated how he to can kick himself in the head with his foot.
Here is a condensed version of what we saw, the video in full was over 25 minutes:
So in 6 weeks we’ll meet this little guy. He’ll change our world forever. Until then, we wait (some of us more comfortably than others).
