Doing Things the Hard Way

One thing I have learned over the last few months is that Joshua likes to do everything the hard way! About 10 days ago we discovered that Joshua had an inguinal hernia (in the groin) and were told that he would need surgery to repair it, but they wanted to wait until he was bigger so he could tolerate the anesthesia better.

A hernia is where there is a hole in the abdominal wall and the bowel escapes through it. The major problem is that the bowel can become "incarcerated" or stuck in the hole and cut off the blood supply to the intestines. So of course, we have been to the ER 3 times because this happened. On Sunday, Eric left for New York on business and at about 2 am Monday morning, I found that it was stuck again. The doctors in the ER took turns trying to push it back in, and on the 4th try it worked. They decided to just do the surgery as soon as possible. It was So hard to watch them pushing on his hernia because it was painful and he was screaming.He had the surgery on Monday afternoon and was discharged the following morning. Eric was really upset that he was in New York for all of this, and it's been really hard for me to do this on my own.

Because of everything that happened, I was awake for about 36 hours straight and I've had about 4 hours of sleep since then! (So please excuse any typo's or incoherency)Joshua is doing better now. I think the hardest thing about being a parent so far is seeing my baby in pain and not being able to do anything about it. I feel like he's had such a hard start and we haven't had a chance to just be... normal!Today Joshua weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces........ just about double his birth weight! I can't believe how big he is in my arms now! Here are some "first times" we documented:
His first time to church! (Yes, those are newborn pants!)

First appointment at the Pediatrician
First family walk!
First bath at home!