Fading scars

We are safely home. It is so surreal. We are home as a family and life is going on. The biggest change is the addition of a newborn, not the addition of spina bifida. He wakes at night and wants to be fed and changed. He sleeps during the day peacefully and quietly, almost mocking us that he won't be that quiet and unassuming at night. He has a Foley catheter in for two more days and that is really the only indicator of his SB, once that comes out, I am pretty confident that his diagnosis won't even be on my radar. John and I are convinced the scars and shunt are already healing and seem smaller, but really it is the fact that we don't see those when we look at him anymore, they are not as noticeable to us as they once were and are definitely not the first thing we see. He is our Baby Thomas. Not sick Baby Thomas or spina bifida Baby Thomas, just our new little Baby Thomas. I will admit that at moments when he is a little extra fussy or when his eyes do that newborn not focusing or going cross-eyed thing, it crosses my mind that it could be his shunt, but I always talk myself down and realize that it is typical baby stuff. I do take his temp regularly and measure his head occasionally, but that is to just keep a baseline so if something is suspicious I can compare those numbers quickly. Really life is just going on. I never imagined this is how it would be. That life would find it's new normal and would go on so easily. That all the scars, literally and figuratively, would begin to fade from view. Why was I so scared? What did I expect life to be like? I guess I just had tunnel vision on the hospital part and the surgeries and the diagnosis that it never occurred to me that we will find our groove and our new normal and it will feel so natural and complete, I am not sad about his SB, I don't feel like I am in mourning anymore. This is our baby just how he was meant to be and his big brothers are over the moon about him, although David doesn't want me to hold him EVER, I can tell he loves him.....in his own way. 

Today I had to drive back down to Cincy for my incision check. As I turned on the road to the hospital, I felt a little sentimental welt in my throat...are you kidding me? We haven't even been gone from here for a week yet. I was so ready to get home and leave this place, but driving down the street that I walked countless times to get over to the hospital to see him, I felt slightly sentimental. I even saw some people walking that I knew from the Ronald McDonald House. It felt comfortable to see it all from a new perspective. I think that is a good sign, I wasn't bitter about this place. I know deep down it saved his life and gave us the best possible chance for a good outcome. Don't be mistaken, I am hoping we don't need to come back and check in as a patient ever again, but just come for regular appointments. However, this place is the beginning of Thomas's story and I never expected it to hold value in my heart, but the scars are fading from it too.