Merry Christmas Andrew!

Merry Christmas Andrew! And Merry Christmas Blank Hospital NICU babies! Above shows the baby items donated by us, some of our family, close friends and some colleagues of mine from work. We collected enough and purchased enough ourselves to give 22 gift bags to the babies in the NICU unit that Andrew was in last Christmas. It felt so good to do this as our way of celebrating Andrew's first birthday and to add some cheer to the families that have babies in the hospital over the holidays. I hope it brightens their Christmas as it did ours last year when we were surprised by the gestures from many other NICU families that had been there before us.

I asked the boys if they wanted to help daddy and I deliver the presents and what they were and each got very sad and said no. My oldest thanked me for asking as he walked away. So the delivery did not include them like I had thought it might.

Overall I have taken the holiday in stride and have not really had any difficulty enjoying the celebration. But for a bit of time today, as our guests left our home, it just overtook me and I didn't want to be near anyone. The delivery of the blessing bags also weighed on my mind. I had collected them all, bought some items to supplement and add our own bags of love and hope but when it came to actually carrying out the delivery, I knew I could not do it alone. And Mark was there for me. Thank God!

In the end, it has been a wonderful weekend and other than that moment, I have been fine. And I think it's because Andrew wasn't physically with us last Christmas. We've done this before. No Andrew at our family gathering. Instead, we had our only Christmas with our son in room 11 at the Stage 2 NICU unit at the hospital. He lay in the iceolete (I have no idea how you spell those special babies preemies are put into to help them stay warm and protect them) as I opened his presents and showed them to him through the glass. We didn't want to expose him to the germs. As is, we had to wash our hands every time we entered the room or did anything that brought germs onto our hands. And he napped off and on as we both held him close.

Not necessarily exciting but we were touched to have blankets and ornaments and all of these little bags waiting for him expressing love, hope and blessings from other preemies that had been in the same situation the Christmas before or many Christmases before. And if only we had known it would be our only Christmas with him.

Oh well, we could "if only" a lot of things with him.

The future is bright. We have 3 beautiful boys that are just precious and are growing so much.

Little boys that gave mommy a heart-shaped locket to have a picture of Andrew in it to symbolize that he is always with us and in all of our hearts. How wonderful is that!