Smiles!

Darren has really started smiling a lot in the last few days and I just love trying to get him to keep doing it. Here's the best picture I have been able to get so far

Darren is 4 weeks old!

Pictures of our Visitors!

We had so much fun having our families come out to visit! It was hard to see them all go back home. We will try to see them again soon!

pics!

Here are some more pictures of darren and me. Many thanks to andrea for photoshopping the pics to make them better, especially the ones of me :)
darren is such a little angel! we sure love having him around. this picture is at 3 weeks old

this is the first pic taken of darren and me -- right after we got home from CHOC
i'm definitely not an eloquent person, but i'll just say there's really nothing like holding your baby and looking into his eyes. becoming a mom is the greatest thing i have ever done.

December 21, 2007 at 4:59 PM

welcome to our family baby darren!! we are so thrilled to have you home with us. i could hold you all day long and never get sick of it. i won't bore anyone with too many nitty gritties about the hospital experience. i'll just say that little darren's entry into the world wasn't exactly according to our plans - but that is how life so often goes. i had to have a c-section after more than a day of labor because his head wouldn't drop down low enough for me to be able to push. then, after he was born, he didn't breathe on his own and had to be resuscitated by the doctor. the doc was worried about darren for multiple reasons and took him straight away to the NICU. the next day they transferred him to the children's hospital, where he spent almost 3 days in the NICU there and was observed and tested for chromosomal abnormalities. to make a long story short, after all the testing everything looks normal and the genetecist will check up on him in 6 months. it was stressful waiting for all of the test results to come in, but we are so excited that everything looks fine.
here's darren at the children's hospital

they ran out of mittens so they put booties on his hands

the nurses at CHOC were so nice and took wonderful care of our little prince. he had to have a feeding tube for a day because he kept throwing up everything he was fed

paul came down with a terrible cold the day i got induced. he was so careful to protect darren from his illness

i couldn't get out of the hospital for 3 days thanks to the c-section so i didn't get to really hold darren until i was discharged on christmas eve. nothing can compare to the feeling of really holding him for the first time - i had three whole days to imagine it before it happened. it was so special to have christmas at home with darren! we feel so blessed that everything tested normal for now and we are able to enjoy our beautiful baby boy.

the time has come

ok, now that we have officially become parents, it is time to finally create a blog. because that's what all new moms do, right? it's in the rules. so i have an official place to show off all of the cute pictures of our sweet little baby, and write about anything else that seems bloggable. should be fun for me.