One Year Ours

A year ago today, at exactly five months of age, Samuel was officially discharged from Alberta Children's Hospital. He came home. He became all ours after months of being part ours and part theirs. I was happy to share him with those lovely people at the hospital; they saved his life. But I was also happy to have him be all ours.

A couple of CDH babies in our midst have just come home - Clay and Jude - and Killian is [this] close. Going home after so many months is a breathtaking, amazing time. I remember feeling like it could not be real that we were walking out of the hospital with Sam and all his stuff. I had imagined that moment so many times. I had watched other families walking out of the hospital with their child and with bags and bags of things, stopping every few feet to take another photo of the route home. I had joked with nurses about making a run for it, how I would grab my baby and would need at least two of them to run down the hallway with us, pushing his IV pole and various other life-saving accessories.

Now he is home a whole year. Ours for a whole year. Seventeen months old. Eighteen pounds (if you hide a 3 ounce weight in his diaper). Since then, he learned to breathe on his own and to eat and to dance. He had two more surgeries. He grew 6 teeth and a head full of hair and he developed a giggle that rocks our world.

School's out and we're entering another summer with all four of our boys. Sam's rocky start has faded in ways I didn't think it ever could. He is ours.

Oh, and happy, happy Canada Day. Happy day.