Happy Due Date Zachary!!!

It's amazing how much 8 weeks can change a little man! He looks so precious and innocent here.

Our first photo of our little man. Wearing his CPAP. Arent' we lucky he is free of all those tubes now?!

"Wearing" my little man inside my sweatshirt to keep him warm. Is this what it would have been like 9 months pregnant?

Today is the day Zachary was supposed to be born! Today is the day we will refer to as the next year progresses and we try to figure out Zachary's age. I know, very few babies come on their actual due date. When you hear me refer to this date, I completely understand that it could have been highly possible for Zach to not come on this day. However, he entered this world 9 weeks early and surprised us all. In terms of age, we will forever use his real birthday, Dec. 27th, as the date to figure his actual age. We will also reference this date, Feb. 25th, as a point in which to figure his adjusted age. So, today Zachary's true age is 8 weeks old (9 on Saturday), but his adjusted age is 0!! It is funny how he doesn't act like a brand new newborn, he acts older. However, he doesn't act like a 9 week old baby, he acts a little younger. I figure he will fall in between the spectrum for the next year or 2 and then we won't even remember the silly 9 week difference at all.

Yesterday home health came out and weighed Zachary--7 lb on the nose. If he had arrived this week we figure he'd be an almost 8 pound little man. Ouch!! It is hard for me to imagine carrying a baby this large. I had to throw in the picture above where I was cuddling with Zachary inside my sweatshirt. That's the closest I can get to imagining what it'd still be like with him inside me. It seems like forever ago that I felt his little flutters pressing against me. (I have figured out a few of his "signature moves that I recognized from inside. From day 1 he has this way of stretching his legs straight out, feet flexed. I just know he did this inside, too.) It seems like forever since I was laying in the hospital trying to stop contractions to keep him in a little longer. When I look at him he seems so large to me now. I look at him and he has nearly double his birth weight. His cheeks are so chubby and his cute double-chin makes me smile. It evens seems like quite a long time since we've made those long drives back and forth to the NICU to scrub in, and anxiously wait for 'permission' to hold our baby boy. We feel so totally blessed with the way things turned out!!

Zachary has begun to smile such sweet smiles at us. They are pretty faint for now, but last night he lit up with quite the large smile at his mommy. It was enough to make my heart melt and bring happy tears to my eyes. It is so sweet to see that little boy smiling up at us. He is sleeping great (knock on wood) and we have to wake him once during the night to feed him. He then goes right back to sleep. We are thankful for that!! He sleeps throughout the noise of our chaotic house, and I am thankful for that, too. He is eating pretty well. We just couldn't be more pleased with his continued progress. We officially move on from preemie diapers to newborns today. We also outgrew the length of most of our preemie sleepers this week. Proof that they do grow up too fast.

I have heard a lot of people ask me "why do you think he came so early?" Who am I to question something that we figure God had planned? There has never been and never will be a true, definitive answer. Skip and I assume that it could have been due to the 2 vessel cord. Perhaps if he had stayed inside longer he wouldn't have received the proper nutrients. Perhaps he would have had problems we wouldn't have known about. We are true believers, and we know that God makes a lot of choices for us for one reason or another. God chose for Zachary to come and be with us early, and that's all I need to know. I guess we just got lucky to know that Zachary was taken care of in a way that we all knew he was safe and sound. Plus, we got a little bonus time with him. :)

For my own journaling benefit, we have had a little countdown ticker in the upper corner of our blog for the last 7 months or so counting down the days until our due date. I left it up there even after Zachary was born b/c I found it humorous to see how many days to go before he was supposed to be here with us. It used to say things like "39 weeks, 4 days 3 days to go" Today is says "40 weeks 0 days It's go time!" I think that is pretty sweet.

Happy due date Zachary!! We love you and are so happy you came into our family. Even from the beginning you were quite the surprise. We just assume that you will continue to fill our lives with sweet surprises!! Although you came early, we feel lucky to have gotten an extra 9 weeks to hold you, see you, and love on you. You just couldn't wait to come out to meet us, could you??