Lauren's birthday

It's hard to believe that 6 years ago, I held you...my itty bitty little munchkin...for the first time. This picture was taken about 30 hours after you were born, because, as I described yesterday, I was too sick in the 24 hour period after having given birth to be taken down to the NICU to see my baby. My first few days of motherhood were filled with these sort of disappointments - it was not the "birth plan" I had chosen - to be admitted a full day before having you, on what seemed to be every sort of monitoring machine in the unit while they tried to keep my blood pressure stable. The long period of not getting to see you while Daddy gushed about feeding you from a tiny bottle holding a mere ounce of formula. Being told that you would be kept at the NICU for some indetermined amount of time after I left...which ended up being only 24 hours...there was something that felt like failure in that first day, being home with no baby. Daddy would call the NICU to find out when you'd had your last bottle, when you'd gone to sleep to try and stave off the tears.

You were so tiny. 16 inches tall, 4 pounds 3 ounces at birth and just 4 pounds when we brought you home. In those first 8 weeks, we had 8 weigh-ins (one with a visiting nurse at our home), and feedings every 2 hours by the clock, even in the dead of night. Daddy and I split feedings so that we could get a mere 4 hours of continuous sleep.

And those out there in the Internets probably remember that even though your newborn wasn't 4-pounds that at times it felt you were only keeping her alive by the sheer force of your will. You'd get up even when it wasn't one of those every 2 hour feedings to stare into the bassinet at your bedside to watch her tiny chest rise and fall.

Self portrait, August 2008

You're just too cool for me these days. Our conversations are punctuated by eye rolls, foot stamps, and door slams, but you're still my little munchkin.

I love you, peanut. Happy birthday!