Marching in Thanksgiving

(Four very silly reasons to be thankful)

Today was the March for Babies. Most bloggers are doing wonderful photo enteries of the event, but my husband had the camera and I had my hands, and chest!, full of kids, so I couldn't steal it from him.

We saw old friends from the NICU and I am in awe of how wonderful their children are doing. We saw new friends too, people whose babies are close in age to Georgie's but we just missed them by weeks or days.

When in comes to prematurity, weeks and days matter. I love that they are our friends and our kids can play together. I am happy to have not met them in the NICU but rather in happy circumstances, like bringing dinner to the NICU or on Facebook.

Staff from OPRMC was there and all I had to say was, "We bring the grilled turkey every year" and they knew who we are! It was funny- Thanksgiving is our MO.

And it was in thanksgiving that we walked.

Alot of families walked "in honor of" or "in loving memory of." Yes, we walked in honor of Georgie and his cousin, born at 33 weeks a year and a day after Georgie. We walked in honor of my friends children, who were born fighting for their lives, for every breath they took. Tiny babies, some as small as one pound, fought harder than most adults. And they won.

It is fitting, though, that my son born a week before Thanksgiving, orginally due at the time of year when we give thanks for a tiny baby, is our reason for being thankful. We are thankful he is here, alive, breathing. We are thankful he came home from the hospital. We are thankful for the love and support we recieved while he was in the hospital, from the preist who baptized him, to the friends who brought meals, to the pumping supplies and advice to the staff who knew what to do to help him survive and thrive.

We are thankful that we see no specialitists, no extra doctors, no extra medication.

We are hankful that, if we do need those services in the following months or years, that they exist and people know how to help children with those needs.

We are thankful for the healthy children we have- and thankful that we have children at all.

We marched, thankful that he can walk and is beginning to talk.

I am thankful for every.single.day with my family- that they are here, that they simply live.

Because, really, nothing else matters.