Brian the early dad

I found these pictures of Joshua and Brian and I thought they were amazing. Not the photography itself, that isn't great, but the love you can see between the two of them. So I thought I would dedicate a post to what Brian did while Joshua was in the NICU. And put in the pictures how they fit or just randomly if they don't.
When Joshua was born I quit working, my poor boss got two days notice, and that was only because Joshua was born on a Friday, and I wasn't supposed to be at work again until Monday. Fortunately Brian had a decent college job that would pay our bills to tide us over the summer until he started his real job. The plan was for us to save up some money during my last trimester when both of us would be working decent amounts so we could have some money for the baby and Brian could take some time off. Well Joshua through a loop in those plans. We had some savings, but we also knew that there would be a three week gap between Brian's jobs and we had to get ourselves across the country so we didn't want to dip too much into that. So Brian hardly took anytime off while Joshua was in the NICU.

Fortunately Brian had a job where he could do most of his work from our laptop, so he would come to the hospital with me and work there almost everyday. Brian spent an incredible amount of time at the hospital each day probably over 10 hours on weekdays between working and actually visiting Joshua. I remember he said once that being at a hospital that much was kind of depressing, but he still did it. Even though I spent more actual time with Joshua, I would be in and out, and in the pumping room, but the staff knew where to find Brian. Everyday the doctor would call or talk to the parents of the babies, and he would usually just go down the the parent's room to talk to Brian.

Brian would also help me with the pumpings. When we were at home he would drag the heavy hospital pump to where ever I wanted to be for the pumping. He would also get up in the middle of the night every night to help me get the pump stuff all assembled and the milk put up in the end, so that the whole process would go faster and I could get back to sleep faster.

Joshua would always have this content look on his face when Brian held him. I would envy Brian sometimes towards the end when my visits with Joshua revolved around trying to get him to nurse. It seemed like Brian was able to just enjoy him more sometimes.

I love this picture too, it looks like they are hugging.