Snuggling

Our hotel room has a king bed, and then on the other side of a wall, a couch bed. I'm not normally fond of king beds, they are so big, I feel like I'm a mile away from my hubby. But in this case its been nice. Two boys sleep on the couch bed, one boy sleeps with me, and Jax sleeps on the other side of me. Arina sleeps in a porta crib.
I love sleeping next to my boy. He's never really been able to come into our bed and snuggle, he's always had too many tubes and monitors. Nights that he cries or is cranky, I pull a chair up to his bed and hold him there until he calms down.
Bonding can be so hard with a baby like that. When he spent most of his first year intubated and sedated, I felt so helpless. I would walk through the store and not complain that my baby was not normal like these babies...but complain that its not fair that they got to dress their babies, and take them to the store, while my baby layed in a crib in the hospital. Because of Jax medical problems, my insurance gave me a fancy breast pump. I never really was able to breastfeed my babies for long. My milk always seemed to run out after a few months. Carter was the longest so far, I was able to nurse him for 5 months with the help of a pill to increase my milk. With this super fancy breast pump, I was able to pump milk for Jax for 8 months. I only gave up at 8 months because bottles and bottles sat in the fridge at home and at the hospital. He had to switch to IV nutrition because of fluid in his lungs. That and the fact that there was no way after this long stay, that he would drink by mouth again. So I stopped pumping, and handed the pump back over to my insurance company.
Being able to snuggle for the last week with Jax has been amazing. A few small glitches, like even with the trach and vent, he is a super restless sleeper. So all night I'm super careful about moving too much, because it will wake him and make him stir. The other night he fell asleep with his hand on mine. I can't help but think that he felt comfort having his mommy right by his side. He can feel my heartbeat, and my skin, and he is loving that! And of course, so is this mommy!

I ordered Jax and Arina's Halloween costumes. I'm super excited, and I've put a poll on the sidebar. Lets see if you can guess what they are going to be!