Miracle Baby

Our amazing families, specifically my sister and all the grandparents threw a welcome party for Harris, complete with jungle balloons and monkey and elephant cakes. A welcome party - because in the craziness of my pregnancy and Harris's birth, I never had a baby shower. To be honest, while one was planned early on, I was ambivalent about a shower to begin with -- concerned that a shower would be bad luck, somehow cause something to go wrong -- and that was even before I had any idea!

So we had our welcome home party and Harris was in all his glory surrounded by family and friends. It is amazing to watch how loved he is, how people marvel over him, and how he seemingly LOVES it. More then once yesterday I heard someone say that he was a miracle. A miracle. To me amazing, to us a blessing - but a miracle. The honest to goodness truth is that I was never willing to believe that we were not going to have a happy ending, though I feared it on an occasion or two - and probably still do. And for the last five months, before our little man was born; to the crazy NICU days; to the first weeks home, I had been too busy living the chaos to have time to step back and look at it all and recognize the "miracle."

So... today when I watched Harris play in his swing and then play with Dad on his new playmat (thank you Aunt Lauren). I felt overwhelming pride - he was PLAYING, reaching for toys, kicking to turn on music, and cooing at Dad (wahoo! a step towards talking). Harris is an amazing little man - and while we may not be done with obstacles, the fact that the first few weeks (both in utero and out) were so amazingly challenging and I am now able to watch him, just like any other mother of a two month old may just be a miracle. Sure feeding is still a pain, and he may still be doing a few less things then our neighbor's two month old, but what he can do is truly miraculous!