Blessings Part I: Addison

It's a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon, and sweet Addie is having a pretty good morning. She's resting well and is acting much more like our sweet happy baby now that she's several days removed from her first ventricular tap. She had a rough 3 days immediately following the tap - very pale, spitting up almost constantly, bradying and desatting - but she's worked herself out of it at last. She's so incredibly tough! She keeps bouncing back from whatever gets thrown at her, stronger than before. She's been great, and we even got to kangaroo for 1.5 hours yesterday afternoon! I can't tell you how much Philip and I love cuddling with her.. .it's the most wonderful thing ever. We can only get her out once a shift, and she let's us know how long she can be out. I did get to experience "wearing" baby spit up for the first time yesterday as she spit up a decent amount while I was kangaroo'ing with her last night. I didn't mind one little bit; it's amazing how nice it is to experience something "normal" with your baby.

That leads me to my theme for the day: blessings. The other day I was wrapped up in guilt, and I know I will always struggle with that. For now (at least for yesterday & today) I am focusing on our blessings. There are so many! For starters, even though this time with Addison is so tough, it's time we could easily not have had. If I had carried her to term, we would have no idea how spunky or how much of a fighter she is. We wouldn't know that precious smile and how hard earned those moments are. We would know she was amazing, but we wouldn't know the depth of character she already has. We wouldn't know she already has beautiful hair and gorgeous eyes and the sweetest of eyelashes and finger nails. She's taught us so many lessons already: how to pray and talk to God with so much passion you run out of words (and that He understands when there are no more words to cry out), how to enjoy every fleeting MOMENT of happiness and joy because we may only get a moment, how to lean on each other and how little we truly need in life, how to persevere when the situation seems impossible, and that the strength in our little 3 person family is amazing. She's also taught this planner that planning simply doesn't always work. She's taught friends of ours that prayer works and miracles are possible.

There is so much strength in her tiny hands, it amazes me. She has shown all of us that there are no rules and that "normal" is overrated. Forget your odds, forget how babies should respond to treatment.. .she's her own person, and she's going to make it on her terms. She is the single greatest blessing that Philip and I have ever encountered, and we are better people for being her parents.

Please keep her in your prayers as she will have another ventricular tap this week. Please pray the recovery time doesn't take as long and that the experience will be less traumatic for her.

More to come about the infinite blessings we've discovered in our time here and at Ft. Sanders.

Love,

Rachel & Philip