my day...

started out as a typical no school kinda day. We slept in a whole 30 minutes longer than usual. We did our usual morning routine and then I took Brinley out to swing in the yard. That's when I got a call from Chaplain Michelle at Sacred Heart. She had 2 babies, different families, that needed pictures done today. My schedule was pretty open and my awesome sister, Julie, took Brinley for the day. Needless the say, I spent most of my day at the hospital with these families and helped the mom that I took pictures for last week (she had her baby over the weekend) move over to the Ronald McDonald House.
The first of the babies was in the NICU. She was just born to early (23 weeks) and had some bleeding. Sweet little thing. We took pictures and then the parents took her off life support. After they said their goodbyes, I got a few more shots without the tubes. Chaplain Michelle, a nurse, and I stayed with her while she passed away. Beautiful little girl.
I then met with mom from last week. I will be going back to take pictures of her baby, which is doing very well, this Friday. I am so glad I got her belly pictures when we did. Her daughter is quarantined for 48 hours from other babies and pregnant woman, so I couldn't see her today.
I had a few hours before the next family delivered their babies, so I was able to have lunch with Matt at his work, which is really convenient since he works about 3 blocks from Sacred Heart Hospital.
I got a phone call from one of the nurses telling me that the family was ready for me. Her voice sounded familiar...it was my nurse from when I delivered Brinley, she is from Scotland and I LOVED having her as my nurse. She happened to be this families nurse also. The nurses were in the middle of a shift change and Heather Roberts, from Forget Me Not, was there to take over. We met the family and their sweet little boy (25 weeks old). He is a twin, his sister was in the NICU and doing good. This little guy had some major internal/external defects. He was a handsome little thing. This family was doing particularly well. The mom had had an EXTREMELY rough day (and I mean more than just losing a child) and was just taking things so incredibly well. They had some other family there and so we took lots of pictures with them too. They knew just what pictures they wanted with their baby and the grandpa had about 5 cameras (cell phones, digital, 35 mm, etc.) with him so he just followed me and took pictures as I took them. They didn't want to miss a thing. I will be back Friday to take pictures of the sister in NICU.
I picked up Brinley from Julie's house at about 9pm and headed home for the day. Tomorrow I am not going to be doing too much (except getting these pictures edited and put on cds), but Friday afternoon is booked, back to Sacred Heart for me...
oh yeah, while at the hospital the second time, we saw this

just outside the window. Spokane got hit with a freak storm. The picture doesn't do it justice, those were some black clouds! I guess it hailed like crazy in the valley, but downtown got dumped on with rain. The roads turned into rivers and some of the drains were actually bubbling up water. What is with this weather?

*side note: Olivia would be 7 months old today. I passed by my room at the hospital many, many times today.