Happy Birthday Beautiful Girl!

14 years ago today, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She was born early (only 5 weeks?-everyone constantly, annoyingly asked in concerned disbelief), and was very sick. She was also big (in premie terms), a little over 6 pounds (again with the astonished queries, 6 pounds? That's not that small.) Yet, she was in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) for a little more than a week. (An hour in the NICU feels like a lifetime, but there are people who spend weeks and even months visiting their precious babies there. My heart aches for every minute of worry a NICU parent experiences. They are all in my prayers!) Baby girl was on a respirator and a few days into her stay had a life-threatening blood clot that, fortunately, was able to be dissolved.

Today, as on her birthday each year, I look at my beautiful, healthy daughter, and am filled with emotion. It is bittersweet, as are all my children's birthdays, a year older! and a year older. But it's more than that. I am thankful that she survived the trauma of a premature birth. I am eternally grateful to the amazing nurses and doctors who saved her life and held my hand. I am thankful that my OB told me I "felt a little faint" so she wouldn't be able go discharge me yet, allowing me to stay in the hospital near my baby girl for a few more days. I am grateful that when I did go home, I didn't lose my ever-lovin' mind. I am thankful for the policeman who did not give my husband a speeding ticket when he was rushing some freshly pumped breast milk back to the hospital so that my baby's nurse could feed her. I am thankful for the nurse who went back to the doctor 3 times to convince him to change the orders on my baby's chart so that I could try to nurse her more often than the "plan of treatment" called for. I am grateful that the doctor finally agreed that this was a good idea (allowing us to bring her home from the hospital sooner than expected)! I am especially grateful that we didn't have the time or technology (thank you 1997) to research all of the things that could go wrong for our little girl-which would have only invited more worry into our stress-filled, sleep deprived existence.

Whenever my moppets ask me what the best day of my life was, I always say that I have 8 best days. My wedding day and the day I brought each of my children home from the hospital are the best days of my life. But an extra ray of sun shines on the day I brought my little NICU graduate home!

Happy birthday beautiful girl!