Why am I awake at this horrible hour in the middle of the night? It can't possibly be because it's Christmas, and I have the ability to sleep and snuggle up in the night next to my Boy and know that I don't have to wake up before dawn tomorrow in order to ferry him to work. Well, maybe that's part of it. I can't sleep, anyway, so I might as well sit up and pump out more drips and drops of milk for my Robbie.

He's two pounds now. Two pounds for Christmas. I thought it might happen, but that was positive pushing in my brain. I never fully believed I would see it. We went up to see him and there's just enough chub on his body now that I don't see every breath rushing through his lungs. The internal workings of his body are more of a mystery now. Isn't that something? He begins to look like a Real Live Boy and less of a hairless spider monkey covered in very fine thin fur.

Incredible to stop and think that very soon -sooner than I expect or believe will happen- he'll be coming home. By "soon" I mean that it may be another month or so. Roughly his due date, but we won't know for sure until it happens. One day my phone will ring and the doctor will say that it's time to bring my baby home, and then my world will turn upside down one more time.

Last time I likened it to being in labor mentally. I was more nervous walking into the hospital than I had ever been in my life. I shook, my hands sweated, and I couldn't think beyond one moment to the next. We held the car seat between us. And a diaper bag. I don't even remember what was in it. So clueless, despite everything I thought I knew.

This time will likely be the same. In another year I'll blog about how innocently naive I was tonight. How I thought I knew what I would face, the challenges, the sleepless nights, the endless slogging through learning a new preemie who must be held Just So for feedings, upright or sideways backwards for so many minutes after feeding, how he sleeps best, how to keep socks on his feet... I'll despair about ever sleeping at night with my Boy in the same bed, because it'll seem as though one or the other of us is always awake with this child.

And I will feel so incredibly blessed to be allowed to have this miracle in my life.