Welcoming Theodore

Hello readers,

Well over a year ago, in December 2023, I began a blog post like this:

“Many of the best gifts in my life have been unexpected, and Theodore Jonas Kinsinger, born November 7, 2023, was no exception. He weighed in at 4 lbs 3 oz, was 16 inches long, and arrived almost 8 weeks before my December 31st due date. He is a gift beyond measure, but nothing like my carefully laid plans and deadlines anticipated. You haven’t heard from me on this blog because in the three weeks following his birth…”

And there the written part of post ends, followed by a string of pictures I uploaded that day and never put words to.

Today I will finish that post. And I will attempt to explain a little bit why I didn’t finish it earlier.

Ivan and I recently tried to name a major event for every year since our marriage (“the year Annalise was born, the year your dad died” etc) and the description we came up with for 2024 was “the year we were tired all the time.” Crazy what one little gastro-intestinally challenged baby can do to you. Besides the stress of caring for Teddy, we were also working through difficult decisions and emotions–decisions and emotions that have not been completely resolved yet, and so I won’t talk about them.

But I will talk about Teddy, my bright-eyed, giggly, wiggly, amazing little boy. Before he was born, I was scared to parent a boy. I mean, how does one know how a boy THINKS? How does one relate to a boy?

Strangely, my apprehension vanished the minute I held Teddy in my arms, and just between you and me (and minus the gastrointestinal challenges), boys just might be easier to parent then girls. So far, our second born seems far less dramatically inclined than our first.

I came this close (picture two fingers held a centimeter apart) to giving up blogging during tired twenty twenty-four. But something in me wasn’t quite ready to. Maybe I need to blog. Maybe it is one way of processing. Maybe it is one way of being somebody, of being heard. Maybe it is one way of forging a connection with a foggy puddle of readers, mostly nameless and faceless in my mind, but people that in some way care about what I have to say, because they read my stuff. Maybe it is one way of maintaining that elusive thing a writer needs–a platform.

And so I never entirely gave up the idea of blogging…sometime. I’d even narrowed down my start-up time to within the next couple of weeks, when I opened an email a couple mornings ago from a reader who sounded rather frustrated. If you have decided that you need to let it go indefinitely, she wrote, it would be nice if you would at least put a short note to that effect on the blog so the people who keep coming to see if you have a new post would know to just let it go also.

Yes, it would. And I am sorry, people who keep coming to see if I have a new post. I had no idea you’d remained faithful. This is due to the fact that the only blog posts I ever check are the ones that pop conveniently into my inbox (and even then I read them less than half the time because, well, I just don’t have time). Bless you for coming back, a whole year later.

Here’s Teddy, the day he was born.

His birth felt miraculous to us. My contractions came so hard and fast there was no way to stop them, but the doctor gave me magnesium and steroids via IV: steroids to strengthen his lungs and magnesium to slow my contractions and protect his little brain. The steroids would need 6 hours to be fully effective, the doctor said, and there was no way we were going to get that…but maybe the magnesium would buy us a couple.

By God’s grace, my labor stretched out seven hours, enough time for Teddy’s little lungs to fully absorb the steroids. When he was born, he needed only minimum oxygen help, which is unusual for a boy. He was transported to Ruby Children’s Hospital in Morgantown, about an hour away.

I got to hold him for the first time the following day, after I was discharged from our local hospital.

One of the most exciting moments of my life was when he got to try drinking from a bottle for the very first time.

We were so impatient for him to master sucking and swallowing so we could take him home! That and growing older, because we were told he wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital before thirty-five weeks.

Such scrawny little bird legs my baby had! Actually, I worried tremendously about his below average weight his entire first year and only recently calmed down a bit and relaxed (since the worst of his gastrointestinal difficulties seem to be over and he’s settled into a heartier feeding routine).

Another exciting step was exchanging his incubator for a bassinet.

And FINALLY, finally when he proved that he could actually and surely eat all by himself, having his feeding tube removed.

At our request (okay, pleading with a few tears) we were allowed to go home two days early, which happened to be the day after Thanksgiving in 2023. My parents were there to escort us.

Home at last.

With this bright-eyed little munchkin.

Who grew into this joyful toddler.

In retrospect, the two and a half weeks Teddy spent in the hospital wasn’t that long. I know people whose babies were in the NICU much longer. But to us, every day felt excruciating. The daily hour-long drive to the hospital. The fact that our little family was always split in two, since Annalise wasn’t allowed into the NICU. The fact that I wanted to care for both my babies, and couldn’t. Annalise started acting out specifically for me over that time, because she couldn’t understand why I left her.

It was two and a half weeks in the hospital, but much longer until our family felt anything like normal again.

If you call this normal, that is. It must be admitted, Teddy’s mama is a VERY messy baker.

We thank God for our Teddy.