A trip down Memory Lane....

This week has been one of those rare weeks for me. I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about when Josh was born, and how that has changed our family this past year. With him turning a year soon, I thought I would post some pictures of when he was born... maybe they are some pictures we have never shared with anyone.

This picture was the day after Josh was born. This was the first time we were able to offer Josh a bottle and the first time Scott held him. I was able to hold him late the night before... I was at the hospital anyway and the NICU is open to parents 24/7. He was 16 hours old before I was able to hold or really even touch him for the first time.

This picture was taken when Josh was 4 days old, and under the Bili lights for his jaundice. This is the point where we were only allowed to hold him twice a day... at 9am and 9pm.

This picture was taken hours after we finally were able to bring Josh home from the NICU. You can't tell, but he still had lights at this point... they were a blanket that was wrapped around him under those blankets. I was so glad we only had that for 3 days.

And my baby today!!!!!!!!!! Look how big!!!!!

Josh is doing great. We have had a rough week, which is why I think the trip down memory lane has been going on. Just an update on how things are going with him: he has been in therapy for 5 months now. And this past monday is the first time we have ever had a session go for almost 2 hours. Usually his therapists are here for 30-45 min and are gone. He has always had progress since his previous visit with whichever therapist is here. So for the first time ever, we are backing off and back to square one. His therapist tried him with chunks in food, a Gerber Stage 3 food with tender carrots and stuff to chew. He did not do well at all. He gagged several times, and then actually choked on it. It came out his nose and everything. He was so upset after, and I was worried as you can imagine. So his therapist said that he is still going to have to be on a strickly puree diet, and we will work with tongue development. With his birthday in less than two weeks, I had obviously given up on cake, but was going to do some jello for him. But his therapist said that he isn't going to tolerate that either. So we are back to puree foods, with at least 3 bottles of formula a day. It is not what I was hoping for and seemed like a blow to how hard we have been working on this. It seems like more and more this poor child is not going to ever catch a break. It truly breaks my heart that as a mom, there isn't anything I can do. But we will keep chugging along. We have the best therapist ever, so at least I feel like we have a good game plan and we will get through this.

So that has been my week with Josh so far. He just has so many things to deal with, I still am amazed at how happy he is, and hope he continues to have that great attitude. He'll need it!