Timing is Everything...

Never in our craziest dreams would we have expected for September to roll around...and already have a baby here! You all might get tired of hearing this from us...but, we still look at each other and just say "holy cow...WE HAVE A BABY?!?!??!?!".... I have heard from many of our friends that this is a normal occurrence with your first baby anyway... It takes a long time for things like this to sink in.

Timing is so crazy. It would be easy to really get caught up in wishing that our baby would have come closer to her due date. Anyone who has studied the development of a baby from conception, to embryo, to fetus...to birth, knows how crucial and critical every day is. To me...it's an absolute miracle that ANY of us come out functional!!

Instead of wishing that we would have had those extra 10 weeks for our baby to grow like normal...when we really think about it... we could never be grateful enough that she came right when she did... though, of course, in a perfect world...we would definitely have been grateful for every extra second we could have gotten...and know it's absolutely the best for babies to go as close to full term as possible... we couldn't be more grateful that she held on as long as she did before coming:

-If we would have gone through any of this a century ago... I would easily have started back over a bachelor...having lost a wife and a baby.
-If this would have happened earlier than 1898... and they somehow delivered the baby....we would have most likely been sent home with a tiny bundle, and an eyedropper to feed her... and been told to keep her warm in the kitchen stove, but not to expect her to survive the night. The first incubator station for premature babies was put in to use around the turn of the century in Chicago...
-If she were born earlier than 1922...we would have had to deal with a premature baby without the aid of a doctor who had studied anything formally about neonatology. The first textbook on this subject was written in that year...
-If she had been born even 50 years ago...chances would have been slim for her to get any of the special treatment she would have needed. The first NICU in America was opened in 1965...and that was all the way out in New Haven Connecticut! And it was about that time that they began to use ventilators on premature babies
-It was only in 1975 that neonatologist were beginning to be certified as such by the American Board of Pediatrics
-Realistically...it would be hard to imagine that she would have survived had she been born before the 1980s, which is when they started to develop pulmonary surfactant therapy, which really makes all the difference in whether the baby's lungs can function that early on...and the use of the Betamethasone, the steriod shot that prepares the little baby to come prematurely...(Steph got two of these before Avery came the next day...)
-If she had come 3 or 5 weeks earlier...many of her organ systems would still be under-developed, and would have had a much higher chance of developing brain-bleeds, or any of a number of common complications for babies younger than 29 weeks...
-If she would have come even a week earlier...we would have been stuck out of state, with all the worries of insurance, being away from home indefintely, eventually transporting her once she became stable or relocating...(I'm getting heartburn just imagining that!)
-If she would have come a day earlier...she wouldn't have gotten the benefit of the 2 rounds of the Betamethasone steriod shots that most likely helped her tremendously...
-If she would have come even a few hours earlier...Stephanie's platelet count would have been too low for me to have been with her during the c-section, and she would have been put completely out for the surgery...
-On a selfish note...if she would have come a day earlier (or a month later, for that matter...) I wouldn't have an August birthday buddy!! ;)

I could probably go on and on ad nauseum...but it will never cease to amaze me how perfectly the stars aligned for our baby to come... it's hard to believe how lucky we are...and hard to feel like we deserve to be so blessed... We are VERY aware that this is not always the case...and our hearts go out to every parent who has gone through any difficulty relating to bringing a child into this life. There is nothing for us all, but to count our blessings...mourn with those who mourn...reach out to hold each other AND reach out to be held when needed...