Christmas 2008

I love that she held out her book so well.

Skipping forward in time from the last post. Claire's first Christmas was a lot of fun. She was at least somewhat interested in her gifts. I had to pat myself on the back for that.

Also, for her Christmas present we got her an exersaucer. She absolutely loves it.
The only problem with it is she is cursed by her mom, with short stubby legs.

We found a way around that.

We did it!

We are officially part of the blogging craze. I don't know what to make of it. Part of me feels happy that others, especially out of state, can catch up with us. Another part of me feels like rolling my eyes, because I never thought I would be doing this. Also, I'm not quite sure how to start this all out. So here goes.

Sean and I moved on 6/08 for his new job at an architecture firm. I didn't find a new job, because I was due with Claire in a few months and didn't see the point.

Claire came 6 weeks early and had several health complications including: Jaundice, Blood infection, 2 spinal taps, and 2 surgeries. The first surgery was preformed in order to save Claire's life by removing about 3 inches of her large intestine that had died, the second to put reconnect her intestines. The first surgery was very scary to deal with.

Eight days after Claire was born she was still in the hospital she was born in. The morning nurse noted that she was sluggish for her 8:30 feeding, by 11:30 she was completely unresponsive. I had my phone on vibrate that morning and didn't know that I had missed 2 calls from her doctor until 1:30. We immediately went to the hospital. Sean was able to give Claire a blessing that she would eventually recover from all of this, and be a healthy girl. Little did we know what eventually meant.

It was so hard to see Claire like that. She was completely limp, and unresponsive. It really made us nervous when the nurse pricked Claire's foot. Claire, lying there with her eyes still closed, did nothing.

This is a picture one of the nurses took before Claire was moved.
It brings back pretty bad memories.

Claire was then sent in an ambulance to Cardinal Glennon Children's hospital NICU. Sean and I spent the rest of the day there heartbroken. We left for home around 9:30 pm exhausted, but Claire was somewhat stable. By 10:30 pm we got an urgent call from her doctor letting us know that she needed surgery immediately. After a long night of sleeping for a few hours in a room with bunk beds, we were told that Claire's surgery went well.

Claire spent 3 extremely, extremely long weeks in the NICU. We visited her every day and rejoiced when we were able to finally bring our girl home. It was scary for a while knowing that we were responsible for this human life that had already come so close to death. We have loved having her in our family. She is such a wonderful and sweet baby.