1 Week Old!

          One week ago, I met my sweet Flint for the first time in this life.   While my husband gently touched my face, I laid shaking on an operating table, silently praying with my eyes slammed shut while tears still found a way to ooze out of them.  I was terrified – more afraid than I’ve ever been at any point in my life - until I heard that sweet little cry.  It was a weak cry, but nevertheless, it told me that my son was alive.  I spent half of my pregnancy worried that I would never hear that cry and my son would die before I even met him.  With that sweet little cry, those fears were finally put to rest.  I finally saw that sweet, teeny little face for about 15 seconds, and then he was gone.  Seven hours later, I finally touched him when his perfect little hand wrapped around my finger.  It was a special, sacred moment.  We have been blessed with many more sweet and tender moments as we have gotten to know Flint over the past week.  His spirit is so strong and I am overwhelmed by how close I feel to my Father in Heaven whenever I hold him!  He is my sweet miracle baby, and I am SO grateful he is mine!
                Flint is definitely tough and he is thriving!  He has gained half a pound since his birth and now weighs 3 lbs. 8 oz.  He no longer has his IV, nasal candela, or eye patches for the bilirubin light.  The only thing he still has on his face is a feeding tube that goes up his nose and straight to his stomach.  He is on “full feedings” now, so they moved the feeding tube from his mouth to his nose so he doesn’t accidentally tongue the tube out of his mouth.  He is starting to root and loves sucking on his pacifier, all of which are signs that he is about ready to start bottle feeding.  Once he starts that, then we can finally work towards breast feeding which I cannot WAIT for!  He has “touch times” every 3 hours where we or the nurses change his diaper, take his temperature, and do all his tests or stats.   Once every 24 hours, we get to hold him.  A few people wanted to know why Brock was dressed the way he was in the pictures I posted last time of Brock holding Flint.  Every time we go into the NICU, we have to scrub down and then put on a hospital gown.  When we hold Flint, we can either hold him wrapped in his blanket, or we can do “skin time” with him, where we hold his bare body against our bare chest.  This skin-to-skin contact helps the baby in innumerable ways and is great for mom and dad too.  We love getting to share that special bonding time with Flint, especially since we are so deprived of other interactions with him.  So for anyone wondering why Brock was flashing his chest hairs around, it’s all for the love of a child!
                Tomorrow we are going to meet with the neonatologist and neurosurgeon to decide where and when we will do the shunt surgery.  For some reason, this has started to overwhelm me a little.  If Flint was “just” a preemie, I wouldn’t worry at all about his future.  He is rocking the preemie world!  However, Flint still has his brain issue to deal with, and there are so many unknowns with that that still scare me.  My fears at this point though are totally different than they were a week ago.  Before I met Flint, my fears were all selfish fears:  How is MY life going to be affected by his possible disability?  What will I have to change in MY world to accommodate this?  Will MY life ever be the same?  Now though, I am totally enraptured by this little boy and I don’t care AT ALL about how MY life will change.  Now, any fears I have are totally centered around how these things might affect FLINT.  I just want him to be HAPPY and love his life!  If he is limited in any way, I can handle it just fine as long as HE is fine with it.  I feel strongly that Flint chose to come to earth in this specific way, and I just hope that down the road, he doesn’t feel like he got the bum end of the deal.  His spirit is so special and strong, and I hope that if he does have any limitations because of his disability, his spirit will be strong enough to be okay with it.  I just love him so much and hate the thought of his life being limited in any way by his Dandy-Walker Malformation.  Only time will tell what his life condition will be, but I am so happy to be his mom!  I am so grateful for all I have learned because of his huge, perfect spirit that lives inside his tiny, imperfect body.  One thing is for sure: my life will definitely never be the same.  It will be so much better! 

 

Happy one week of life Flint!