Living the Dream: Remembering an Angel- Year One

When Laynie was born, I actually was in the delivery room with Lacey because the doctor was pretty certain Laynie wouldn't live but a few minutes, and I really wanted to be there to see her and have those few stolen minutes with her.

I remember hearing her cry and seeing the most tiny of tiny baby, with her little backwards, tucked under her butt, feet. Her little head was just a bit bigger than a Cutie orange and her little bitty body, just everything so small.

But the LOVE that overwhelmed my heart, nothing small about that. The NICU was on a different floor than Lacey's, so I got in my steps those few days at Children's .... running up and down the stairs, because the elevator was too slow.

This looks really intimidating, but it really isn't when you know what you're looking at..... the cannula, giving her oxygen (which she really didn't even need) was too big for her tiny nose, so they had to use that black eye patch thing (with velcro) to hold it on. She had a little tube in her mouth and down her throat to get any of the fluid in her lungs and tummy out....and you can see she is just a tiny bit bigger than my hand. They said she weighed 4 lbs 2 oz, but in reality it was more like 3 lbs and change. 37 weeks.

Once they removed all the stuff, we got a look at our little angel sent from heaven. You have to remember, also, they were telling us that she could die at any minute and gave us zero hope. "kidneys are small, and will go into failure" Blah. Blah. Blah..

Lacey looks at these pictures now and laments, "You let me walk around the hospital in those pajamas?" and I think she looks amazing, considering she had just had a C-section and was up and around in a few hours. (again, my hero)

I am going to share some of my most favorite pictures of those first days. We took a bunch, because we honestly didn't think we would have her very long.

Hallie's little pigtails and her nose to nose contact with her sweet little niece...so much to love here.

This was the first of 2 million kisses I gave this baby. 2 million plus 2 million. I could never get enough of her. She liked it.

I need you to understand how extremely tiny she was. Finding clothes for her was just enormously challenging. There was a store in Northpark Mall that had micropreemie clothes. That tiny little pink outfit cost like $38. I know that might not seem like a lot to you, but preemie clothes at Walmart started at $3.88. They swallowed her! Thank goodness her grams sewed and stitched up her preemie clothes and gave our girl her own altered clothes! Plus we discovered Bitty Baby doll clothes (from American Girl) fit her, too (and that's a pretty penny also) I didn't care. She was totally worth every penny.

Grammie helped Hallie buy this ridiculous giant balloon that had legs and looked like it could walk and if you bumped it, it obnoxiously sang "YOU GOT THE CUTEST LITTLE BABY FACE" and it was funny and loud, and exactly what we needed, as we kept getting bad news and worst case scenarios. We found ourselves leaving the hospital, having to leave our princess behind, and for the heartsick mama, loading up all our stuff and taking that balloon on the cart with all our things, it seemed like everytime we started to tear up and cry, thinking about leaving our baby there, that stupid balloon would AUTOMATICALLY start singing. Without prompting. Just "YOU GOT THE CUTEST LITTLE BABY FACE" and we would bust out laughing. And I'm serious, ALL. The. WAY. HOME....that balloon would just randomly sing. It got us through.

The next day, the doctors decided that they couldn't do anything more for her there and they sent her home with us on hospice. I have never in my LIFE been more nervous about anything in my life. The had to pad the carseat with washrags around Laynie, to bulk her up, to fit in the straps, and off we went, with the tiniest baby in the world, not knowing what the next 10 minutes would bring, with the final command, "If you have her in two weeks, take her to the pediatrician".

Two weeks later, after we had already "fired" hospice, the pediatrician holds her with one hand and turns her every which way and declares, "Little Miss, you are going to write your own story", and he was oh. so. right.

The little baby that wasn't suppose to be born. Go home. Live two weeks. Live a month. Live six months.

Defied all the odds.

Never had the words of a song had so much meaning for me. I finally understood what it meant by God watching even the tiniest sparrow. I knew that His presence was in our home, surrounding that baby, every second of every single day. He was there.

About this time, one of the most significant miracles happened on this journey. The house right next door went up for sale (the neighbor knocking on my door to tell me he was going to repair the fence, because he was going to list it next week, and me asking if he would knock some $ off, if he didn't list it and I did all the paperwork (I was a realtor at the time) and he knocked $20k off the top and three weeks later I had new neighbors!!!) GOD IN ACTION.

Her most favorite place (and mine too) was tucking up and hanging out in my warm robe, right up next to me.

Guys, I've never felt softer skin, heard sweeter sounds, witnessed such pure spirit, as I experienced with this little girl. Truly an angel sent from heaven to teach us all.

As year one came roaring up on us.....we were truly learning the definition of BELIEVE.....

'to have a firm or wholehearted religious conviction or persuasion : to regard the existence of God as a fact'