Crazy End to a Crazy Year

I came onto the blog deciding it was time to post something again.  Man have I failed!  I knew it had been a long time, but didn't realize there is only ONE POST with Alaina in it!  That was almost two years ago.

A lot in our lives has changed.  Haley is a big four almost five year old.  She is learning how to read and will be starting Kindergarten this fall.

Alaina had her birthday on May 15th and loved her second birthday.  Almost everything she got involved Disney Princesses or Wreck It Ralph.  Let's just say she is an individual!  She talks like a maniac with a vocabulary I can't even begin to count.  Haley and Alaina are best friends.

Benjamin is less than a week from his GRADUATION from medical school.  Time has gone by so fast and so slow at the same time!  His fourth year was filled with training in different places all over the western states and a lot of homelessness.  We lived with his parents for two weeks and with two different sets of aunts and uncles in Salt Lake City and Spanish Fork, Utah.  We then lived with my parents in San Diego while Benjamin lived in Denver, Colorado in an extended stay hotel all alone; with us for one month; with a roommate in Portland, Oregon; in a dingy, old, hospital room in Seattle, Washington; and with a friend and his wife and four crazy little boys in an outlying area of Seattle as well.  Then he came back to us in San Diego, and we all moved back in with his parents in Idaho Falls the beginning of March.  This is all in the last 12 months.  It has been a crazy and hard year for us.  Thank heavens for skype!

Benjamin has now matched to Salt Lake City for residency and we will be living there for the next three years.  We are really excited about him matching and the program he matched to.  It really is the place we are supposed to be.  Heavenly Father has truly answered our prayers.  We have signed a lease on a townhome in Holladay, Utah and look forward to having our own place to live.

But the most important thing to report right now is that we have a new addition to the family.  I was due July 7th with a baby boy, but he decided to come early.  His name is Adam Arthur Thomas.  Adam is a name I have loved for a while and it just seemed right.  Arthur has special significance to our family.  Arthur is the name of Benjamin's maternal grandfather.  He was a simple man but one we loved a lot.  He died fairly recently and his death was felt by all of us in our little family.  It is also Benjamin's middle name.  His name is even more special because it is my maternal grandfather's name as well.  He died while my mom was pregnant with me, but I always felt a connection with him and often spoke to him as an imaginary friend when I was little.  So there is the story behind his name.

There is a lot of story behind how he came to be in our family, and the life he has lived so far.  I will explain his birth story in a future post but will start with the main points up to now.  He was born on May 18th, 2013 at 8:28am at 32 weeks and 6 days gestation.  He is a NICU baby and will be there for a while still.

Benjamin sent out an email on May 20th to some family members with a quick update.  Here is what he wrote:

Hey everyone!  Thanks so much for all of your prayers, help, and support.  We feel that we have been really blessed and know it is because of your faith and help. 

Adam is doing really well for being a 33 "weeker".  He is on IV fluids for hydration and nutrition.  He is on a little bit of pressurized room air through his nose but his oxygen has been very good.  The only other thing he has going on is a feeding tube down his mouth to his stomach through which he is receiving Laura's breast milk and some formula.  He is losing weight as expected (mostly water weight so he is looking less puffy).  

We feel it was such a blessing to be here in IF when this happened.  EIRMC has a great, modern NICU with wonderful doctors and nurses.  We are close to family and the girls don't even have to change a lot while we wait for Adam to be released.  We could have been on a plane to graduation or driving in a moving van through Nebraska!!!!

Laura is recovering like a champ.  She came home last night on the day after giving birth!  She really is one of my heroes and I look up to her more than ever.  I hope my kids become like their mom.

We love you guys.

Ben

More posts with updates and pictures to come soon.  Most of the pictures are loaded on another computer and I just need to post this in order to get going!!!  So I will post some more pictures when I have access to the better ones.  Hopefully these will tide everyone over for a little while at least.  :)

We love you all and are so grateful for the outpouring of love we have received from so many people.  We have had many people tell us they are praying for us, fasting for us, and putting our names in the Temple.  We have had food brought in, gifts given, and babysitting offered.  We cannot say thank you enough.

This one is of our sweet Adam the day he was born, at about 6 hours old.

Here is Adam on day 2.  He was in an isolet all snuggled up with the heat controlled, so he was toasty warm.  The orange syringe in the picture is his food, draining using gravity into his stomach through a tube that went straight into his mouth and down his throat.

Laura didn't get to hold him until day 2.  Here is the first time that she got to do skin to skin.  This is important in their care, but I'm not sure exactly why.  He is tucked in the gown and he is only wearing his diaper.  He snuggled and slept for a while.  It was like heaven being able to hold him.