Released!

Finally, my beautiful daughter got to come home!

Having a child premature scared the ever-loving life out of me. No buts about it, it scared me to a place I don't think I knew existed within myself. Going through the night she was born, I feel lucky to have survived that kind of fear and the days afterwards did not do much to help me otherwise. What if God gave me this perfect little gift and then took it away? Well, it was too much for me to imagine.

Now, I said no buts of course but there is usually a light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually, she got better. One day her light bulb came on and the little girl took off. She began slugging down ounce after ounce of formula and she ended up gaining back her birth weight. God doesn't really give you anything you can't handle, and about the time I got to my breaking point, here we came around the bend.

So now, Reese Kamry Neal has finally blessed our lives, our home, and whether they think so or not, our dogs. We just couldn't be happier to have her here. I thought Dustin might start shaking yesterday he was so excited. We had no grand pomp and circumstance, no special outfit (nothing fits anyway) no door decorations, just a small little family walking in to our life. It was a really special day for us.

We didn't sleep much last night, she has to be woken up every 3-3 1/2 hours to eat and since we are new to this we had flip lights on to get the bottle room temperature and to find the snaps on the sleeper but we did it. We sat and debated about the habits we wanted to start so we made sure we didn't put her in our bed or hold her in our arms through a whole nap but we did it and she is no worse for the wear.

I never thought I'd really think about where I could find a hand held mirror so I can check for breath, or that I'd ever forget to read a book to my child before bed(I am a teacher, I know better than that!) but I do know now that the color of the sky is so much bluer and the first snow of the season is a little more special. When you wake up one day and become a mother, the world just looks a little different and I am so glad it does.