(Almost) 3 weeks of Evan

Sleepless nights, endless feedings (both the baby and me), baby talk, no clue why he's crying.... ahh yes... it's all coming back to me.  Life with a newborn again has been crazy but fun.  I have completely fallen in love with a little guy who couldn't pick me out of a line up at this point and I'm completely ok with that.
The delivery was very emotional as you probably could have guessed.  I'm much more aware of the preciousness of life and how something could easily go wrong.  I was worried about the baby and myself.  But we're just fine.  The nurses and doctors were all so wonderfully understanding of our circumstances.  And when they placed him on my chest for the first time and I said "he looks like Kellen," I'm pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye in the room.
And then came the time to leave the hospital and take this perfect little person home with us.  I've always tried to be very honest on this blog so I'm not afraid to admit that the first week was very hard.  And not the typical things new parents complain about, lack of sleep, needing a break, etc.  But it was very difficult for me because I was so worried and anxious about him.  Neither Abe or I was comfortable with him sleeping without one of us watching him so we took turns in the middle of the night being awake while he slept and we just watched him.  I knew going into this that that would be difficult but I didn't know how difficult.  A couple nights in I was watching him sleep, swaddled up tight when his arms escaped out the top and the swaddle blanket came up over his face.  I jumped up to move it out of his face and he went back to sleep.  I sat there and sobbed. Postpartum hormones are no joke but add anxiety over the safety of your child to that and it will take it's toll.  So that was the end of the swaddle blankets.
Thankfully the anxiety has subsided a bit (definitely not all the way but a bit).  We have a monitor attached to him when he sleeps that gives us peace of mind but also freaks us out if it goes off as a false alarm.  Needless to say when we are sleeping, we sleep very lightly and constantly wake up to check him.  Abe and I have many middle of the night "speed dates" when I wake up to poke the baby and make sure he's breathing and I see Abe is awake and doing the same thing.

 And then there's the love.  As any mom will explain, I have no favorite child.  I love all my children equally and each time I have another one, my heart somehow creates enough space for each of them to have 100% of my heart.  Just trust me on the math.  But when I think about the love I have for Evan, it is different than anything I've experienced before.  I have a healthy obsession with this little guy.  I want to stare at him all day long.  There is something amazing that he has done to help heal my heart when it seemed that nothing in the world could possibly help repair what I had lost.  I don't want him to feel the burden of being the "savior child."  I don't want him to feel like his only purpose on earth was to make his mom and dad feel better.  But I will say that he has done for us what nothing else possibly could.  I now fully understand the value of life and I will have a deeper love for this little guy than I ever could have imagined all thanks to his big brother.  I realize how lucky we are to have him and that our tomorrows aren't promised.  We are soaking up every moment with him.  Even the 2am wake up call... and the 3am wake up call... and the 4am wake up call :)
Baby faces, baby snuggles, unconditional love.... ahh yes... it's all coming back to me.