What a difference 4 months make...

Having Avery home with us day in and day out is such an amazing thing for us...since she spent the first 2 1/2 months of life living 45 minutes away from us... Back when she was in the NICU, it seemed like we could see how much she grew each time we came to visit again...

Now that we are with her all the time, its harder to see how far she's really come since those late summer days... I mean, it's still very easy to see that she's gotten bigger...but that's all relative. And we can very easily tell how teeny she still is...especially when we see anyone else's baby...

My personal feeling is that all babies should come out that small... minus the medical craziness that attends a micro-preemie, it has been so much fun to see such a miniature version of a human being... I'll never get over the absolute miracle she has been, looking at her teeny fingers...all ten of them have worked perfectly from day one, when her little hand could barely grasp the tip of our fingers!

As small as she still is, at 7 lbs, she's more than tripled her birthweight of 1 lb. 15 oz!!... I know that there are a few parents of babies who are going through a similar time who read this... and because of how much it helped us to know when we were in the thick of things.... these teeny babies DO grow up... there will be a day when you can hold, and bathe, and play with your little baby, just like you were expecting to when you found out you had a little baby on the way... but had no idea that your situation wouldn't be just as planned... But I'm sure that's true for all of us who have had babies... does it ever happen like you had it planned? Not all little preemies make it as easily as Avery has...but then again, not all full term babies just come into the world problem free either... there are ups and downs and bumps and bigger bumps that have to be expected... but there's hope too... there's hope, because we get through those times.... we DO get through them, and it's okay eventually...and sometimes, we're blessed enough for it to be more than okay... We never do it alone...we all get through these things together...

I knew we had these two pictures somewhere...but I still sat there for about 5 minutes moving them around in disbelief...I had never put them side by side... to really see how far we've come since August... If you ever wonder, in the midst of all the good and the bad that does happen in life, if every once in a while, miracles do happen....maybe these pictures can bring you a little hope... you don't get a miracle every time... but they do come... and when they do... not much else matters...