36 weeks

Wow.  36 weeks.  That's 2 days longer than I made it with Lexi.  To some it isn't a big deal, to me, it means everything.  When I went on hospital bedrest with Lexi 3 years ago the only thing that kept me going was knowing that when I left that hospital I would have a sweet baby girl in my arms.  I was admitted on a Monday.  On Saturday night I was begging God to make it be over.  I just couldn't do it anymore.  I felt like I was alone all the time.  I don't know.  I can't explain it now.  I just know that being in the hospital is miserable and I was totally done with it.  I had Lexi the next day.  Maybe God heard my prayers.  Maybe He knew that I really really couldn't do it anymore.  Maybe it was just fate.  Either way, at 35 weeks and 5 days Alexia Rosemay entered this world at 5lb 5oz and 17 3/4 inches long.  I didn't know at the time that my hospital had an automatic NICU stay for every baby born before 36 weeks.  So minutes before I had her, in swooped a whole team of people.  They let me see her and touch her face and kiss her before they whisked her off to the NICU.  Jacob went with her and I went back to my room.  She breathed good.  She looked good.  They gave her a binky almost immediately because she just wanted something to suck on.  But she wouldn't eat very good at first.  So they put a feeding tube in.  It took her a couple days to start taking all her feeds by mouth and for them to remove the tube.  Then she wouldn't keep her body temperature up.  For those 9 days that she was there, we couldn't take her out and hold her whenever we wanted.  We could take her out to feed her, hold her for a little bit, and then put her back in.  And she had to be wrapped up completely the whole time.  If her temperature wasn't good, then we couldn't take her out and feed her.  She could be out of the isolette for like 45 minutes tops.  Leaving her in the hospital alone every night was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my whole life.

What all this rambling leads to is:
No matter how much I talk about being miserable right now
No matter how much I think I can't do this for one more second
I HAVE TO.  AND I WILL.

I know how lucky I am to even be pregnant right now, and I don't take that for granted at all.  And I know that every day longer that Rex bakes will make his grand entrance and his life, that much easier.  And for one of my children, I will do anything...anything!