Happy Birthday Stellan!
I have mentioned Stellan and his mom a few times before. Today is Stellan's first birthday and he is struggling through it. We (MckMama followers around the world) are wearing orange today in honor of Stellan's miraculous birthday. Please continue to pray for him and his wonderful family.
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Now on to my decision to reveal the names of my family. I started with my wonderful husband Erik. It's mostly because I am too lazy to keep editing their names out of my blog!
So today, please meet my wonderful son B.
Preston. That was the first and only name that Erik ever agreed upon. The little girls that I nannied for started calling him "Pretzel" because they couldn't say Preston. We had a process that we went through when we were choosing a name. It's not something that I'm proud of. Erik and I would come up with as many meant and nasty nicknames we could that were derived from the name we were considering. Prissy Preston stuck. I've never been able to look at a child named Preston (and there have been a few) without thinking "Prissy Preston"! So we threw it out.
When I was 28 weeks pregnant with B, we got some disturbing blood test results. B was beautiful and healthy. My blood platelets were dangerously low. I was hospitalized and we prepared to have a very premature baby. We met with the NICU staff, the financial staff, and social workers, all to prepare us for the hardest road of our lives. But my platelets went back up. I went home. They went down. I back. We spent the last weeks of the pregnancy on bed rest. I did everything that I could to prepare for our early baby but we couldn't decide on a name. We reluctantly agreed on either Daniel or Isaac, not crazy about either. Finally at thirty-seven weeks, B was far enough along and my platelets were high. It was time to have a baby. The night before I was to be induced, I sat at my parent’s kitchen table, alone with my Dad. I adore my Dad. He quietly asked if I had considered the name "B". I hadn't. I threw it around all night, mentioned it to Erik. He vetoed it immediately, something about a bully in grade school.
The next morning, I was induced. It was long and hard and after twenty-one hours of labor and a poorly read cervix, our first baby was born by emergency C-section. He was very tired from such a long and stressful labor. My placenta had abrupted but it wasn't caught, the epidural dropped my blood pressure and the drugs that they gave me made his heart rate hover above 200 for most of the night. Our sweet baby's lungs were filled with fluid and he refused to breathe on his own. He was just exhausted. I didn't get to see him. I shivered in my dark and very lonely room all day. I the evening Erik came in (he had been with the baby in the NICU) and said that he needed a name, that it would help if he could call the baby by a name. I asked Erik if he was an Isaac or a B. He hung his head and told me that he was without a doubt a B. That B crashed and had to be intubated. He was not doing well. I was taken to meet him, to hold him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Less than fourty-eight hours later he was in my arms, off the vent. He had needed his mom. I was smitten the second I laid eyes on him.
B is an amazing little person.
He is spirited, to put it lightly.
He is smart and funny.
A wonderful big brother.
A scientist.
An explorer at heart.
Meet the love of my life
Benjamin Isaac
Oh, Emmi, I love the blog. You took me back to his birth and how close we were to not having our little Ben. He is the light of my life and I love him so. My first grandson... what a miracle. Now, God has blessed me with 2 more little miracles and soon to be one more! God is so faithful. Since I was a girl I wanted to be a grandma, and I am so thankful He gave me the most wonderful blessings of all!
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