Happy 1 month birthday, Samuel!

At 3:20 p.m. today, Samuel turned a month old. Some of his favourite nurses - Laura, Kelly and Danielle - were all there at the time and we whispered our happy birthday wishes to him. I can't believe what has happened in a month. I keep thinking of that feeling I had when he was born, that primal longing to see and hold my baby coupled with the desperate grief of expecting that he would die. And now here he is.

My celebration of Samuel today included many sweet moments. I sat with him in the quiet and I rubbed lotion on his feet, then massaged his legs. He is much less swollen and his legs have that skinny newborn feel. Then his nurses and I bathed him using facecloths and a basin of warm water, washing the bits of him not covered in tape and probes and wires. There was incredible tenderness shared in our quiet voices and gentle touches. We changed his bedding, a production involving a nurse to manage his lines, a respiratory therapist to manage the breathing tubes, me to lift my sweet baby up and another nurse to pull one Nana blanket out and tuck in the newly-made Nana blanket I brought from home.

That moment of lifting him was the closest I have come to holding Samuel since our one and only cuddle when he was eleven days old. To bathe him, change his diaper, cut his tiny fingernails, rub lotion on his skin, were simple acts of mama nurturance that I have loved with my other babies. Being able to do that for Samuel felt amazing and connecting in ways I never could have appreciated before. My heart was full. I couldn`t stop smiling.

Samuel tolerated this all so well that Kelly agreed we could take it a step further. We took out the ink pad and cardstock that I brought and made prints of his little feet. I let myself think of him as one day being a teenager with big stinky feet who was trying to eat us out of house and home and I would remember this tiny-footed baby moment. We`d been tending to him together for over an hour by the time we were done. The sweetness of her doing all of that with me filled me with yet more gratitude.

Later that afternoon, Samuel opened his eyes for a while. He`s been having these longer periods of waking. His sedation keeps him peaceful but he is able to be alert at times too. Chris and Daniel arrived just in time for this round of gazing and cooing. Most exciting was watching the lines on the ventilator show us for the first time how Samuel was working to take his own breaths. The effort of this wore him out quickly and it was back to resting in quiet stillness and his sunglasses. But it was icing on the cake to see these little signs of Samuel getting stronger.

Happy birthday, amazing boy. Thank you for this beautiful day.

A visit from big brother Zachary.

A visit from big brother Daniel.

Peaceful gaze from our one month old Samuel.