Melanie Hugs

Ohhhh mommy loves this! Hugs and holding are so easy to take for granted. This past week I was once again reminded how good it feels to hold a tiny little baby. Yes, we have to be careful. Yes, there are cords and lines to move around (although there is one less...the piccline). Yes, I often feel lazy, dozing on and off between talking to the nurses and reading a book (with only limited movement of one free hand there is not a lot you can do). Yes, I feel guilty for not being with the girls at home. However, I realized today that I'm only holding our baby for 3 hours a day; if that long. If I carried her full-term and she were at home right now, I'd be holding her much longer then 3 hours each day and I wouldn't have half the feelings I had above. So I need to tell myself it's okay to just relax and hold Melanie. That is what she needs right now. She needs to grow. To grow faster she needs to feel her mommy and daddy's love through holding her...however short that may be. I know of several people that have had babies over the past month and several more that are preggo right now...hold your babies. Instead of running off to switch the laundry or to clean the bathrooms hold them ten extra minutes. In the middle of the night when they are crying, hold them a little longer. Those minutes are sooo precious. They are memories to cherish forever.

On a totally different note...last week Monday was our family date night. We went to a H1N1 Vaccination clinic at Fennville High School. WOW! Was that an experience I don't want to do again. Most of you know Jeff and how much of farm boy he is. Washing his hands never really happened in the past. Well, lets just say he was more of a germ-a-phobe then me at this clinic. I have never seen him so concerned about what the girls were touching. The girls did great with their shots. Jayden sniffled three times before she started grunting for a sucker. Miya was so concerned that Sara (her baby) got a shot and band-aide she didn't have time to think about her own shot. Down side, the girls need another dose of H1N1 in 28 days and Jeff and the girls still need their seasonal flu vaccination :( Our date did end on a positive note...supper from the Hawk's Nest! Here is a picture of our tough family!

Here are some pictures of Melanie's war wounds. The scar is about the size of my finger from the tip to the knuckle as you can see. Yes, it looks huge. However, the scar is as big as it will ever be. Which means as she grows, her scar will not. So when she is older it will not be near as noticeable as it is right now.

These pictures are of her after her surgery. She is still heavily sedated and looks very, very, comfortable. At this point she needed to rest and allow her body to heal, which she did. In these pictures she looks puffy from the drugs and fluid. She isn't really that big...yet!