4th Annual Bowl-a-thon

Charley was born on February 21st, 2006.  He was 39 days early.  He was delivered early because he had atrial flutter (meaning his heart was beating over 200 beaths per minute).  It is almost an unheard of condition in utero... really, really rare.  I spent 20 nights in the hospital while they tried to fix him both in and out of my belly.  In the end, they cardioverted him when he was a couple of hours old (meaning "electrocuted his heart") and all was fixed.

Whenever his birthday rolls around I think back to that time, which was the hardest thing I've had to live through.  Being stuck in a tiny hospital room, attached to machines and taking terrible drugs, all the while waiting to find out if your beloved first-born was going to make it.  Wondering if he was going to be okay.  Wondering if they were going to have to cut open his tiny, newborn heart.  It was nearly unbearable.

So, a part of me remembers the bad parts of his birthday.  Thinking about how he stopped breathing right after he was born.  Thinking about them wheeling him away in a box to the adjacent hospital, far away from me.  Thinking about them shocking him with tiny panels that left burn marks on his chest.  Honestly, it is still too much for me to think about.  When I think about him spending those first nights alone in a box, my heart just breaks.

(Insert this song here.  It must have been written by someone who knew exactly how Chris and I felt back in that first week, and I've always thought of it as the 'theme song' of Charley's first few days.)

Of course, as you know, the ending to this story is a happy one.  Now I have a lovely, busy, chatty, train-crazed 4 year old, who may not be traditionally normal but certainly has normal heart.  And that erases the sadness, stress and mayhem from those weeks into near oblivion.

When I brought Charley home from the hospital at one week old, I was able to bathe his 5 1/2 pound self in a mixing bowl.  Since then, I've photographed him with the same bowl every year on his birthday to show me, and everyone else, how he's grown and thrived since then.

The shots:

One week

One year

Two years

Three years

And, now!  Presenting!  4 YEARS OLD!:

He went to the doctor's today and weighed in at 38 pounds.  He's come a long, long way from that premature, red, angry and skinny little baby.  Well.... he's still skinny and occasionally angry.

Happy Birthday little man.  xo