Our highlight of 2010: Baby Kai!

We can't even imagine life without him now. The other night while we were taking turns cooking dinner and entertaining Kai, Gary remarked "What did we do before him?"

Gosh, what WAS life like before baby boy? It's only been five months, and I can't even imagine him not blessing us with his sweet spirit (maybe i'm just reeeeaaaalllly tired...).

Kai Quincy was born July 30th, 2010--8.5 lbs, 21 inches.

I had to be induced because he was NOT wanting to leave Mommy's tummy (AND Gary only had two weeks home before he had to head back down to the Gulf of Mexico for work for a month or so).

I was nervous and SO excited heading into the hospital, and labor was surprisingly, dare I say...not that hard...(I had an epidural, thank GOD for those!).

Kai arrived around 1:00 pm on that hot July Friday, and changed our lives forever.

My favorite moment of the whole experience was when the nurse brought him up to me and we looked into each others' eyes. WOW. I'll never forget that--he wasn't crying, and had the most satisfied smile on his face, like he was saying "Hi Mommy, it's me that was living inside of you this last year."

Kai was born with an incomplete cleft lip, which has made life a bit more interesting than most infants his age. I won't go into all of the boring details, but pretty much, until he is 18, he will have to pay visits to a craniofacial specialist at Doernbecher's Children's Hospital.

However, I am elated to say that I do believe that the worst is over.

No more taping his sweet little face, no more dreading the date of his surgery, no more cleaning out swollen sutures, no more arm restraints...

Here are a few pictures that mark our journey this past five months...

Kai around a week old...

 Kai around 6 weeks...just the start of the taping.

 Kai around 4 months...both Kai and Mommy were finally used to the tape--it was normal, and definitely how we were used to seeing him!

 Kai sportin' his new "no-no's (arm restraints)"with Daddy in hospital the day after the big surgery!

 Kai right after his post-op appointment....it was all good news from the doctor (hence his fingers in his mouth and no arm restraints!!)

We got through it, and I believe more than anything that our little family is now even stronger because of it. It continues to completely amaze me how God takes tough circumstances and uses them to bless, grow and definitely teach us.

While we hope that we have crossed the biggest mountain towards Kai's recovery, we still have to get evaluations from the Craniofacial Dental specialist as well as the speech therapist there at Doernbecher's. We will have appointments bi-anually and then once he reaches 5 years of age he will have to undergo an intense evaluation to determine whether or not he will need any additional surgery.

But I'm not worrying about all of that now. I have a sweet, smiley baby (who is trying to crawl!) to attend to.

And I plan on savoring each second of every day that I am blessed to be his Mommy, and trusting in God to take care of the rest.