Our Bittersweet Week

WARNING: This is a long post, but I don't feel bad. It has been a long week.
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There is no better word to describe the last week than bittersweet.

bittersweet (adj.) - both pleasant and painful or regretful; 

pleasure alloyed with pain

This week has been one that has us living in the tension of excitement and sadness. Excitement because we welcomed a new person into our home...Gabrielle Suzanne. She was born at 2:28pm last Wednesday (12/14). She is 20 inches long and weighs a whopping 5 lbs 9 oz. Check her out...

That awkward first photo that she will one day feel embarrassed about

My beautiful wife was a champ

My first time to hold her 

Tugger is still not sure what to do with her

I love to just watch her sleep

Resting on my chest after a meal

For those who are interested, the labor went smoothly. Kelly and I were both a little apprehensive due in part to how difficult Olivia'a labor was and all that has followed. Every time Kelly contracted and we lost a good bead on Gabby's heart rate, all we could think was, "Not again, Lord. Not again." In the end, after being induced at around 6 a.m., Kelly actually pushed for a grand total of 1 set of three practice pushes and 2 sets of three pushes and Gabby entered the world....and man does she have a set of pipes! We went home on Friday and began our life as parents of a newborn baby girl the way that most parents do...an experience that is new to us.

What has been fascinating about this whole thing is that while being Olivia's parents has caused us to experience a ton, we had no idea what it would be like to take home a new baby who breastfeeds (which Livi never did), who spits up (which Livi never did...is it too much? I don't know) and who cries when she needs a change or is hungry (which...well you get the picture). I know that all parents worry about their child's breathing when they sleep, but imagine when you have worried many days for the past two years about it possibly being the last time you get to put your girl down. With all that said, we keep telling ourselves, Gabby is not Livi. We are learning to enjoy Gabby differently that we got to with Livi, which keeps us on our toes and with our cameras poised to capture the next moment when she grins in her sleep, has her beautiful eyes open, or roots on me as if I have the right equipment to feed her.

Now to the other news regarding my Little Bear...the bitter part of bittersweet, if you will.

At last update, Livi was still in the hospital and I am writing this now from her room at CMH. Since the last update, they have taken away Livi's food and meds to rest her belly because a CT scan revealed that she had a little air in her intestinal wall which can apparently cause perforation in the intestines. With rest over the past week, it looks like it is resolving itself and that she will be able to resume feeds and meds tomorrow. This week has been hard on multiple fronts, but the hardest part of the past week has been watching Livi come down off of her meds. They didn't have her medicine cocktail available in IV drip so they substituted one med. This has resulted in twitching, irritability, sweats, etc. For the first time in her life, I wasn't able to console her for a few days, which was heartbreaking. She is better today, but I am excited for them to resume feedings, because that means she can have her meds again. Hopefully, we will get things back to normal before too long. We are still not sure if she will be home for Christmas or when she will be able to meet her new sister, but it will hopefully be soon. 

We covet your prayers during this time. So many of you have reached out in amazing ways already and for that we thank you. I could update you more on what the Lord has been teaching us during this week, but I will save it for another post. Sorry for the length. I guess a long week demands a long post. :) I will try to help Kelly keep up with it a little more often. To keep up with my Instagram feed, click here. I probably post pictures there daily.