Counting My Blessings

I just found this post in my drafts- not sure why I never posted it... actually don't even remember writing it, but it is as true today as it was when I wrote it- even more so now that we have been blessed with a second pregnancy.  Looks like I wrote this when Nicholas was several weeks old.  Enjoy!

We have been pretty lucky with Nicholas in that he started sleeping through the night on a regular basis over Thanksgiving weekend.  He typically has his last bottle around 10 pm and then sleeps usually until 8 or 9 am.  It is wonderful, especially after those sleep deprived first weeks with a newborn!  And, many babies don't sleep this well until they are much much older.  There is a period of time coming up that I have been hearing about called the "4 Month Wakeful" where babies sleep habits go back in the crapper, but hey, maybe we will luck out and miss that developmental stage!

Anyway, last night, or rather, this morning, I woke up at 3 a.m. because he was crying over the baby monitor.  I stumbled around and made my way to the kitchen to get him a bottle and then went in his room.  I popped his nuk back in his mouth and to my surprise (and delight!) he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.  I did a little dance of joy, put the bottle back in the fridge, and then went back to sleep.

Later today, I got to thinking about how blessed we have been.  Don't get me wrong, nothing about being pregnant, dealing with the pre-eclampsia, the delivery (hello, 2 hours of pushing) and then having a newborn is easy, per se, but we have had it so much easier than many others.

I have friends that have had trouble getting pregnant.  Some have (sadly) lost pregnancies and had to deal with that heartache.  Some have had a great deal of trouble getting pregnant and have had to undergo expensive and difficult fertility treatments.  Some have babies that are born premature and have to spend time in the NICU which is just difficult all around.  Most of these stories, although some do have happy endings are heartbreaking at at least some point in the journey.

When I sit down and think about it, we are so very blessed.  It only took us four months to get pregnant which is a pretty short amount of time for trying to conceive.  Once I was pregnant, I really didn't have much morning sickness.  I had a few issues with spotting and then a kidney stone issue early on, but once we got past that, I was really healthy until 34 weeks when the pre-eclampsia hit.  For me, the pre-e never advanced to severe, so the worst thing it did was eat up some of my maternity leave due to the bedrest.  I did have to deal with two inductions because the first one failed, but even that really wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things.  I got through the delivery and recovery without any major complications.  Nicholas is healthy and thriving and a happy baby.  We are blessed.