We went to Women’s East on September 18th at 12AM for a scheduled induction. Erin was such a trouper laboring all night and into the afternoon. Poor thing pushed for nearly 3 and a half hours. Willem made his arrival just before 4PM weighing 6lbs and 19 inches long. He was PERFECT. I laughed. I cried. I nearly dropped him when they handed him to me because of my shaking. It was blissful. We were there 4 days in total with one of them being spent under the blue light for jaundice.

Erin’s Mom came to help for the first week… Thank God she did too. I am not sure we would have made it without her. We continued to lay him in the sun to help with the jaundice. We took him to the pediatrician and he had a great report. Then near the end of the first week he started throwing up… sometimes with a very concerning hue to it. So we took him to the emergency room where they mis-weighed him and cause quite the stir (they thought he had lost a whole pound in a couple days). So they took x-rays to be sure he was not obstructed and we spent the better part of the evening in the ER. His doctor suggested we get and Upper GI for him to be sure of the problem and to rule out any of the really bad stuff. We got it and found out he has a pretty active reflux condition. Very common but not that fun nonetheless.

Then a few weeks passed fairly uneventful. We got him in the stroller and took walks up and down the street. We made a couple quick trips to the store here and there. We chased roosters around the yard. You know all the normal stuff you do with a newborn. In early October, my friend Alison from Nashville came down to help me shoot a wedding and she took some beautiful pictures of us here at the house. Then Erin’s sister Sarah paid a visit.

Not too much happened out of the ordinary since then. Take out meals. Lots of diaper changing. Cat naps through the night. I am sure I am missing some big points… It is rather late and I have been up a long time. So I am going to end with this thought I had just earlier today.

Willem was born just 6 short weeks ago and he has been an incredible joy that words cannot express. He has made us truly understand unconditional love in a way that I never thought possible before. I was telling someone that even in the middle of the night when I would much rather be sleeping… while changing his VERY dirty diaper that ended up creating quite a mess… with him screaming, bright red faced because he is so mad… I just looked at him and could do nothing but smile and think how much I love him. In the middle of all that somehow I really think I understand a small part of what it means when the Bible says we are created in God’s image. The love for his children is greater than ours I am sure and I really cant image loving Willem any more than I do.

I want to stop and make a couple thank yous before I get to the pics. I want to thank our friends and family who prayed for us and for Willem through out Erin’s pregnancy and beyond. You mean more to us than you will ever know. Our dear friends Kristen and Paul who threw us one of the best showers I can imagine. They also wrote a song especially for Willem that is just amazing. It is the music for the slideshow :) I want to thank Rhon Logan for sending us such beautiful flowers. The doctors that were responsible for Erin and Willem’s care… None of this would have been possible without you. The staff at Women’s East for helping us with everything… you all were amazing. The ladies of our church’s mom’s group who brought us warm home cooked meals! Alison for some incredible family pictures (some of which are in the slideshow). Everyone who sent cards, wishes, gifts and much more. We love you all and thank you! Most of all we just stand in awe of God for this great blessing and we pray that he will continue to give us wisdom and grace to raise this child in his way.

THIS SLIDESHOW is pics from his first 6 weeks from birth through tonight. There are a bunch of pictures we wanted to put in that just couldn’t fit so if you want to see more please go to my flickr.com page www.flickr.com/photos/mdunmore and mark me as a contact so you can see the pictures.