I should have written this 8 months ago.

My confession today isn't as much a confession as it is something I've been putting off doing for 8 months now.

Our little man is 8 months old as of this week...wow! He had his first almost crawl last night! Anyway, when I was pregnant almost this exact time last year, we found out that he had a 2 vessel umbilical cord. I had never heard of this, and we soon came to find out that it happens in about 2% of pregnancies. Bix and I soon began to drive ourselves crazy reading information online about 2 vessel cords. From personal blogs to medical websites....he had to ban me from researching it because I couldn't stop thinking and worrying about it. We went through extensive ultrasounds, and although we decided against any genetic testing, we were told that there was a strong likelihood that our little man would have Down Syndrome. As you can imagine, the worry we had as first time parents was beyond belief. We knew we would have incredible love for our baby, no matter what, but the fear of the unknown was what we thought about on a daily basis. We spent the next few months preparing a nursery, taking natural childbirth classes and trying to stay off of medical websites!

Just months after that first appointment with the midwife, our healthy little man was born (via emergency c-section, but that's another story!) Weighing in at 6lbs, 12 oz, we thought we were in the clear as far as his health was concerned. When we left the hospital, his weight was below 6lbs, but we were told it was normal for a baby to lose weight shortly after being born. When the nurse came to our house a few days later, he had lost more weight. We didn't see it then, but looking back at pictures, he was just skinny arms, legs and ribs. After another 2 months of struggling to keep weight on him, I learned that he didn't have the breastfeeding skills that I had so hoped he would have. His cries were cries for food and it broke my heart that I couldn't give that to him. Again, reading blogs and message boards helped at times and other times it was just too discouraging.

I sit here now, watching my little man shovel in whole grain toast, avocados and bananas for breakfast and the first few months seem like forever ago. Around 4 months old, he got breastfeeding. It was like a switch turned on one day and he discovered he could get food from me! Nothing can stop him now...he will eat anything that I send his way. He's still a skinny little guy, but the day we noticed he had a tiny little belly, was one of the greatest days!

So back to my confession....when this was going on, there were a number of blogs that chronicled the story of people who had been in the same boat that we were. We were able to extract glimmers of hope that all would turn out alright. When our little man was born, we wanted to add our story to those that had comfort for us. So here it is. Yes, it was a struggle in the beginning, to keep a positive attitude both when we were first given this medical news and when we were struggling to feed our little guy, but things turned out okay. More than okay, actually. Take from this story Hope. If you are going through the same thing, I learned firsthand that doctors can be wrong...ultrasounds can be misleading...and things can turn out good in the end.

There...it feels good to have that off of my chest and out there where it will hopefully help someone else.