Lucas 1 Month Old

 Hello Family and Friends,

I feel like in the context of this Blog, I was really writing with updates with the end goal of Lucas being born and now Lucas is a whole month old! I've made it through the bulk of my own recovery, and he's out of the NICU and we've been home long enough to begin to get into a groove of our life as a new family of 5.

I will go ahead and end the Blog here, but wanted to thank you all for all of you who have held us in your thoughts and prayers and supported us and will continue to support us.

The last 2+ weeks that Lucas has been home has been a whirlwind full of very hard work. I am definitely not a fan of feeding my baby by bottle. ☺I have a new appreciation for the efficiency and convenience of being able to breast feed and be done. A large portion of my days are feeding him every 2-3 hours by bottle, then putting the remaining amount in the feeding tube and having it pumped in while I wash bottles and pump milk for the next feeding. All of which takes about an hour itself. I'll be so grateful to have him be a bit bigger and shift into the breast feeding stage. :)

I will say that we've had some wonderful successes in our short time. We have just freshly weaned him off of needing oxygen. That allows us to feel way more normal at home. I feel more free to carry him around the house with me like I did the girls when they were young and not have him tethered to an oxygen tank. Also makes getting out of the house easier. Lucas also continues to grow and that promises for the feeding tube to likely be graduated from in about a month or so.

There was a couple days in there when we were trying to see how Lucas fed without the feeding tube and had the oxygen off and I got a photo of him with no tubes!, so I'll share it here.

As I write this I can't help but remember all my worry and anticipation of what it would look like to have a 3rd child and couldn't really envision it without a whole lot of realistic thoughts of how hard it was going to be, how much work and lack of sleep I would have to deal with and how I'm "too old for this" and ALL of that is true, but I forgot the other side of things which is how God has these little miracles of life come into our lives as children and all they have to do is exist and be "our children" and some how your heart grows bigger to love them and some how because you love them, it is all profoundly worth it. That love is definitely driving me now and I'm so profoundly grateful and in awe of this little man and how he'll change our lives and have us be bigger and stronger as individuals and as a family. I look at him and hold him and look at my girls and Fernando and hold them and can only hope that they know how much I love them and I am excited to see what God holds for us in this journey of our lives now. Maybe you can relate. 😉

Thank you to all of you again and I hope you are enjoying the warmer weather! As I get a handle on our new groove and schedule as a family of three with Lucas I'll be excited to reach out and connect with all of you soon and will love to begin seeing people in person and introducing you to him as we are able! And if you live far away, I hope you enjoy these photos!

Love and prayers from our family to yours!

The Martincics