sweetest little bean...

I can hardly believe a week has past since the birth of our precious child. Experienced parents are quick to point out how weeks, months, years pass by despite all desperate efforts to hang on to them and process each sweet day, and I suppose I'm getting my first taste of what the rest of my life will feel like...

Soren River Fairfield
May 18
Length: 15 3/4 inches
Weight: 3 pounds, 10.5 oz
Feeding: started on 2 ml of milk every 2 hours the next morning

May 25
Length: 17 inches
Weight: 4 pounds
Feeding: 35 ml every 3 hours and increasing every day!

Our little boy has been doing wonderfully. He hasn't had even the smallest difficulty since his birth, and is quickly moving through the NICU milestones. Perhaps the biggest achievement of his little life so far has been moving from his incubator to a regular bed. It's such a blessing for us to have such easy contact with him, getting to hold him whenever we wish! And he looks quite grown up in his little clothes and swaddling blankets.





It's impossible to know exactly when we can expect Soren to come home. Babies don't usually coordinate their sucking, swallowing, and breathing until the 35th week or
so (he was born at 31.5), so it will likely be 3-4 more weeks until he's able to eat well on his own and leave the NICU.

I miss him desperately. After months of my body being in contact with his, it's heartbreaking to have to leave him in the care of another every evening. It's a bit of a consolation, though, to use this time to prepare everything for him. His clothes are washed, folded, and organized in his brand new dresser (put together the night before I went to the hospital), baby gear is accumulating in our living room, bottles of milk are filling our freezer... what joyful work it's been making our home his!






I never knew I could love another this much...