Happy Mother's Day!

So today was my first Mother's Day. It's a day that's been bittersweet for me during the last five years, and it still is today, to an extent. On the one hand, I'm so very thrilled to finally be a mom, but on the other, I remember how painful it was all those years. It's hard to let go of the pain of infertility, and I think that's okay. It would be weird if it went away quickly and easily.

So when people wished me a Happy Mother's Day today, I smiled and thanked them, but I was reminded each and every time of what it took me to get here. It took five years, thousands of dollars, lots of physical and emotional pain, and then the whole trauma of the premature birth and NICU stay. None of this turned out like I expected it to. And yet, Carter is here, and he seems to be such a typical baby, despite everything.

He's getting so much more alert and interactive lately. He's smiling more ofter, and more spontaneously. He smiles when he first sees one of us, for example, which is really sweet. There's nothing like your baby being happy to see you! He's much more interested in his surroundings now, and won't always just sleep on my chest when we're out somewhere. He likes to be at adult level, seeing what we see and in the middle of what we're doing. He wants to sit on my lap facing out, so he can look around. He's slowly getting control of his head, and seems to be motivated by his desire to see what's going on around him. It seems like we're on the verge of a huge spurt in development, and it's really exciting!

Now for some pictures. Here is Carter dressed up for Mother's Day in an outfit that belonged to one of his cousins.




We went out to lunch and then came home and relaxed. Doug cooked dinner for me, and presented me with a card from Carter:



Isn't that sweet? Yes, I got teary... ;-)

We had professional photos taken a while back (in mid-March), and the portraits we chose finally came in. Some of them still need to be framed. They were were amazingly expensive, but I'm really happy we did it. This one will go in his room:



I love this trio too, but I'm not yet sure where I'll put it:



This one will go in our bedroom. I really like the way I'm smiling down at him.



And this is a group of four that I have a wall all picked out for. I'll either get them framed all together in one huge frame, or do four separate ones. I'm not sure yet.



This is a cute video of Carter and Doug. Doug will drip leftover milk into Carter's mouth, and he'll stick his tongue out to catch it. So cute!



Carter can hold and shake a rattle now, though he doesn't seem too happy about it.



In other news, we went to the retina specialist on Friday morning. He said the stage 2 ROP is still there in the left eye, and he wants to keep an eye on it. The right eye is fine. So we have to go back to the doctor next Friday morning again. I don't think he'll wind up having to get it treated, but it's definitely taking its time resolving.

That's it for now. :-)