Just 2 years and 2 days ago, my trio were born 11 weeks early.
Anna weighed just 3 lbs 1 oz.
Ayva also weighed 3 lbs 1 oz.
And Little Justin weighed 2 lbs 15 oz.
They spent a horrific 55 (for Anna) and 57 (for Ayva and Justin) days in the NICU battling infections and trying to learn how to eat, and keep their temperature up and everything a full term baby will automatically know.
Visit March of Dimes Prematurity Awareness Month to learn how you can help.
Anna, Ayva and Justin are 2 today!! I can't believe these past 2 years have gone so fast...it seems like yesterday my sweet angels looked like this...
And today they look like this...
(Justin and Anna)
Ayva
It's been a really rough road to get here, but I think that just to have these three miracles in my life, it's all been worth it. We've struggled through being born early, getting life threatening NEC infections, Group B Strep infections, the girls being diagnosed with Infantile Spasms, the girls being diagnosed with Cortical Visual Impairment, Ayva almost dieing from infections from taking ACTH, and still trying to become seizure free... I can only hope that by their 3rd birthday, they will have had it a little easier, because they have already fought through more than any adult I know...
I love you my precious, sweet babies....Happy Birthday!
Love, Mommy
Hey go check out my post about "Thankfulness" on my Photography Blog!!
www.sarahfieldsphotography.blogspot.com
The first video is of Anna DRINKING OUT OF A STRAW!! That is BIG news for Annie!
I've came across this before, and now I think it's a good time to share it with all of you.
Welcome to Holland
By Emily Perl Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child
with a disability to try to help people who have not shared
that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it
would feel. It's like this:
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous
vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make
your wonderful plans: the Coliseum, Michelangelo's David, the
gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your
bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess
comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy!
I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland
and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible,
disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just
a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must
learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group
of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy
than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your
breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has
windmills – and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy ... and they're
all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.
And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where
I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away, because
the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to
Italy, you many never be free to enjoy the very special, the
very lovely things about Holland.
::sigh::
