To my precious Brooke Renee:

To my precious Brooke Renee:

It is hard for me to believe that in just a few days you will be 5 months old already! You ate rice cereal like a champ yesterday. It made me so proud and sad at the same time. You are growing up. Since you were born, I have been wanting to write down some of the details surrounding your birth, so that when you are older, you can give thanks to God with us for the great things He has already done in your life.

Last July, I had a suspicion that I might be pregnant, so on a whim, I took your sister, Alyssa to the store and bought a pregnancy test. After coming home and taking the test, I was so excited that it was positive and couldn’t believe that God had blessed us with another child! It was just a few minutes before your Daddy was going to be home from work, but I decided to go to the store and find a pretty picture frame use to tell him the good news. I found the perfect one. It was plain and silver with words on the bottom that said “So tiny, so loved.” I put a piece of paper in the picture part that said “To the greatest husband and Daddy in the world. Expected arrival 4. 8. 10.” I put it at the front door, so it was the first thing he saw when he arrived home. He came in and said, “really?” with a big smile on his face. He was so excited! A few days later, we told our families and they were excited too.

Just 2 weeks later, we thought that we were going to lose you. I was so sad to think about that. I couldn’t believe how much I loved you even though I had not even met you yet! After going to the doctor, and learning that I was not making enough progesterone, I started taking supplements that made me feel especially tired and sick. They helped you though, so it was worth it. I went to the doctor every other day for a few weeks and had several sonograms to check on how you were doing. It was so amazing to see how quickly you were growing. What a gift. Your Daddy and I prayed for you so much during that time. As I rocked Alyssa to sleep and sang her “Jesus loves me”, I cried thinking about the line that says “little ones to Him belong, they are weak, but He is strong.” You were so weak, but you belonged to Jesus even then. He cared for you and helped you to continue to grow strong.

Then came the really fun sonogram where we found out that you were a girl! YEA! I went out right away and bought a cute dress for you to wear home from the hospital. I also bought a shirt for you that said “little sister” and one for Alyssa that said “big sister”. I was very excited to find fun girly things to decorate your room with.

The second trimester was a breeze, but like with your sister, Alyssa, the third trimester brought a few struggles. I had some asthma trouble and the doctors’ were concerned about you getting enough oxygen. Shortly after that was better, my blood pressure started to rise again. Thankfully though, I was able to monitor it at home and was only on moderate bed rest. I was going to the doctor frequently to check my blood pressure to make sure that you were ok, and I thought that when I went to the doctor on Wednesday, that he would schedule the delivery for Thursday. Well…you didn’t want to wait that long! On Tuesday night, I started having contractions. I was sleeping in the guest room so that your Daddy could get a good night’s sleep without me tossing and turning. By 5:00am, I woke him up and told him that we needed to go to the hospital. I called Grammy and she came and stayed with Alyssa. After arriving at the hospital, the doctor came around right away. He said that we would be the very next c-section in just 30 minutes! I couldn’t believe how quickly I was going to see you! It turned out that we had to wait one more hour, but that was good because it gave me time to relax and calm my nerves. The c-section went really well and I was so excited to look at you. You were beautiful. I asked all the people in the room to guess how much you were going to weigh, and we all guessed wrong. You were 8 pounds 14 ounces…2 weeks early! When I got to the recovery room, I asked to hold you. What a special moment that was.

Brooke Renee, I am so blessed to be your Mommy. I pray that God gives me wisdom to be a good Mommy for you. I pray that you will know how God has blessed your life from the very beginning and continues to hold you close to this day. Know that He is your creator, provider, Savior and friend.