What's done is done.

So I sit here tonight wondering who in the world came up with the saying "No use crying over split milk" for I believe it was a male and if not this person obviously never worked so hard for their milk just to have it spill.

9 Months, my baby is 9 months old today and that marks 9 months I have been pumping for him, which is 274 days. When I started for the first 12 weeks it was 10 times a day for 30 minutes I have been able to drop some here and there and now I'm at a lovely 4 times a day but usually for 1 hour UGH. That's 4 hours everyday I sit like a moo cow hooked up to a machine trying to do my very best to keep up with my little mans needs. After reading that I'm sure you might think there is a little aggravation in it and I'm sure your wondering why I even continue.

When Miles was in the NICU, the first few days there was NOTHING we could do for him I wasn't even able to be at his bed side so he could hear a reassuring voice. Once he was able to start having feeds his Neo told me "Now mom this is the ONE great thing you can do for your son, day and night whether your here or not if you bring him milk he will thrive". That gave me so much will power, I could get up at 2 AM cause that's when you produce the most milk for some awful reason, I could bring him any and everything I made for him so he could have mainly my milk, I could spend so many hours doing this for him. The second day I remember saying to Brian and my sister Chantelle that I was embarrassed to call the nurse to get a syringe for the TINY drops I had finally produced, they urged me to and when the nurse came in she was so proud of me! I had to remember he still wasn't even eating so it would all just stack up.

I kept a couple little logs in my phone when I was up in the middle of the night in the hospital bed while sister and Brian were sleeping and I was trying to make food for my son, here is one I will share:

Sitting in the dark at 4:30 in the morning trying so desperately to get a little milk to flow so that later today when I'm forced to leave my little boys side, at the very least I could leave him with something that will continue to help him get stronger. its such a weird feeling being a "mom" and so far the only thing I have been able to do for my baby is provide him milk and ITS being stubborn. - For the record I was drugged, tired, emotional and only got 1.5 Mils lol that's it.

Going through the NICU and even now I'm very proud of myself for continuing to pump for my son, it's so good for him to have. It may be HARD and I may drop his bedtime bottle off the counter and loose 4 oz of milk in one quick swoop, I might cry a little over this split milk which I allow myself to do but I will pick it right back up tomorrow and the next day and the next because my little man deserves it.

So I have been slacking a bit with Blogging, but poor little Miles is teething BAD and on top of that is going through a bit of separation anxiety. By a bit I mean I literally can't put him down with out a tear being shed, this makes typing hard as I haven't quite mastered the one handed typing.

On the Miles front, yes he is teething once again, as if 6 teeth in the last 2 months isn't enough. He is getting 2 at the same time on either side of his bottom front teeth. Poor little drooling man, he seems to be the happiest when he has his pointer finger just sitting on the tooth, its way cute but makes everyone around him soaking wet!

Do to this not so much fun teething experience poor little man is going through, we are getting very little sleep and the sleep we do get is very broken up. Most nights we aren't going to bed till 11 O'clock and he is up at 2 then 5 then 7 and maybe if I'm lucky he goes back down till 9. Its so great the little things that just seem so wonderfully silly when you are incredibly sleep deprived.....

The other night we were doing our normal bedtime routine....Bath, Bottle in our bed while we read him a story and then when Miles finished his bottle he was fussing a bit so we both cuddled up next to him on either side and after about 5 silent minutes of hoping he had finally fallen asleep I whisper to Brian "He is holding my ear" , Brian responds " He is holding my eyebrow" LOL it was a great moment, silent laughing of course as to not wake little man up!

Wonderful moment

There is just something so wonderfully beautiful about just holding your baby, not because they are hungry, to comfort them or to play but just to hold them and in the moment just loving each other.

I remember the first time I held Miles against my chest, he was 6 days old we were doing Kangaroo Care which is were the baby is just in his diaper and the mom (or dad) bares there chest so you can be skin to skin. For preemies this is such an encouraged care to do for your baby, it helps develop a bond between the parent and baby you miss out on in those first few hours of life, it help moms produce the milk their babies need, but its also shown to help preemies become stronger.........I remember those 20 minutes, not the smell or who was around, not his stats or the amount of tubes he had but I remember the moment, the beautiful feeling we shared together.

Tonight I experienced a moment so similar, something only Miles and I shared with this familiar feeling from the past.

Miles and I were taking a bath (we bathe together yes, he was to small for his bath when he came home so with me it was just easier and now we both love it!) Anyways, he was getting tired and usually that means we need a quick bath to get him out before he fusses but not tonight. Tonight we got in and I was letting him play but he kept reach up to me like he wanted to be held so I laid back a bit and brought him up on my chest and he just laid his little head down and stared his beautiful blue eyes at me. We just looked at each other, I trickled water down his back so he wouldn't get cold and we were just in this beautiful moment together once again for no other reason then we just wanted to be.