Jack Ryan's Journey: Flashback Friday: Announcement. Announcement. ANNOUNCEMENT!

These days, I’ll do almost anything that helps me heal or make peace with my ultimately life-threatening pregnancy and Jack’s early arrival (and all that it entails). What I’m doing today may seem trivial to some, but it is triumphant for me. When your little one is born early or sick, there are certain typical newborn and new parent milestones that are lost and grieved in the struggle for survival and sanity. Some of those milestones are more painfully grieved, like not taking baby home days after birth. Others, may not be cause for trauma, but are still a loss for many. Some of those losses are more easily healed than others. Today, this one is easy. For me, one of the less painful, yet still important missed milestones was sending an official birth announcement for Jack. Heck, I don't even know if Jack's birth was in the newspaper, one of the few sections of the Sunday news that I religiously read. Between collapsed lungs and possible heart surgery for our 2-pound babe, some milestones just weren’t going to be checked off on my list, and I’m a notorious list maker and check-off-er! I've always loved stories and books and photos, and I had imagined all those cute little newborn photo shoots at home and at a professional studio. I also imagined filling in Jack's baby book religiously, which became difficult since his first year didn't exactly match up with those fill-in-the-blank books. Since Jack was in the NICU, it didn't occur to me to have a professional photographer document that time for us, so I have some very unprofessional photos from that stay...probably because I was more focused on his survival than his story, at the time. Even after he came home, fragile lungs and on O2 with an NG tube, I was too afraid to expose him to a studio. Since we severely limited visitors, there was no way a photographer was coming into our home either. So Jack’s first year was well-documented…with my smart phone camera! I've been creating photo books and developing this blog, to make sure his story is not forgotten (as if!) and we’ve had a few professional photo shoots as well after he turned one. But, that birth announcement…well, 2 years later is too late, right? Nope. Jack may have arrived early, but for me, it’s never too late to proudly announce his birth. This announcement may be late, but it's free and a limited edition of 5 in the series. (Yes, recently, I received a random coupon from Shutterfly for 5 free cards.)

Here it is: Jack Ryan’s Official Birth Announcement.