If I could...

I know a lot of people wish their babies would stay small forever, or that time would stand still so that it would slow down so that you could enjoy every single moment of it.  I wish I could go to sleep tonight, wake up and have it be April. 

90% of SIDS deaths take place between 2 and 4 months of age.  Matthew was 2 and 1/2 months old, 10 weeks on this Earth.  Samantha is 7 weeks old.  She is less than 3 weeks away from being how old Matthew was when he passed away.  She has already been home longer than he was considering that he spent 26 days in the NICU.  In 11 days she will enter the the highest risk factor age and stay there for 2 long months. 

I can feel the anxiety start to get worse.  I sleep less because every little noise wakes me up and has me checking her breathing. 

Last night I was going through all of Matthew's pictures to work on his shirt for this years march and it was so hard.  I wish I would have taken more.  I wish I had more good ones.  I wish we had more that showed his expressions.  I wish I had more video of his grunts, his little noises and his features.  I wish we would have got a picture of his sleeping smile.  We were so close to seeing his awake smile, I wish we would have been able to.  I wish we had so much more to remember him by.  I just figured we had more time.  We should have had a lifetime.  Had I of known how short that lifetime was going to be, I would have taken so many more pictures.  I would have had that video camera out every minute of every day.  

I find myself taking so many pictures of Samantha because I don't want to not have them.  I want to capture everything and have it to look back on.

This morning I found myself researching SIDS.  Again.  It seems to be a regular thing, even more so lately.  Rarely do I learn anything new, but every once in a while there is a new study.  The study I read this morning showed that of the time babies who passed away from SIDS had the hearing in their left ear better during their newborn hearing test.  In healthy babies, the hearing in their right ear was the better of the two.  Now, I cannot wait for her 2 month appointment to get the details on her newborn hearing test.

Samantha's two month appointment was supposed to be January 10.  But, her health insurance won't kick in for well baby visits until the 15th (bad mommy for dragging her feet on turning in the paperwork!).  So, we have to reschedule.  Matthew's two month appointment was rescheduled as well.  His doctor was sick the day he was supposed to be seen.  His appointment was rescheduled for October 15 at 10 AM.  He passed away in the wee hours of the morning that day and never made it.

I knew there would be times that would be hard, but I don't think I realized how hard some times would be.  Watching Kaitlyn with Samantha can be hard because I know she didn't get those times with Matthew and I know that Matthew missed out on those times with his sister.  We didn't let her hold him nearly as much as we let her hold Samantha.  With him being premature we were so terrified of him getting sick and going back to the PICU.

I think it comes down to the fact that we are going to be paranoid parents.  We jerk out of bed several times a night to check on her.  I wish we would have been as paranoid at night with Matthew.  I wish we wouldn't have practiced safe co-sleeping.  We typically put him to bed in the bassinet and then after the first feeding he came to bed with me to nurse and sleep.  With Samantha, that isn't even remotely close to an option.  She gets nursed, wrapped up and put back to bed in the co-sleeper.  No matter how tired I am, no matter if she fusses over it, no matter if I can barely keep my eyes open.  And on the rare occassion that I have closed my eyes while nursing her, Dusty is right there to wake me up.  I wish we would have been more diligent, maybe then there would be fewer "what ifs" but deep down, I know that there would be what ifs no matter what.  I wish I could just answer the whys.  Why isn't he here with us, why don't we get to enjoy watching him grow, why don't we have a 3 year old little boy running around causing havoc?  There isn't anything I wouldn't do or give to have that.

If I could, I would skip through the next two months.  I would jump right to 5 months and not look back.