Scrapbooks and Savoring Memories

Throughout our entire pregnancy I kept a scrapbook - I scrapbook for everything. I had dreams of telling Hudson, "This is what mommy looked like while you were growing in her belly" and fun things like that. The first pages were filled with the three pregnancy tests I took and followed by belly pictures and ultrasounds. I sent out monthly e-mail updates to friends and family including the progressing belly growth and added those e-mails as well as responses to the book - coordinating with the month they were from or when ultrasounds were taken. Within the book I had pages where I had already set up the pages to add the future pictures we would take - the arrival of Hudson, a page for his first guests to sign, a page titled "from hospital to home". There was a page labeled for each month - January thru March to track his last three months inside of my belly and then April through December for pictures of Hudson. I had a section ready for his "firsts"...so many pages ready to be filled out.
Some of the pages will never be completely finished and those I took out, but the rest I left. I added pictures of Hudson's arrival and pictures of our family holding him for the first time - to say hello and goodbye. Hudson deserved that - we loved him beginning July 20, 2008 at 6:30 PM when I took that first pregnancy test and we will still love him for the rest of our lives. We even finished what we were able to of Hudson's baby book. So much will remain blank, but we wanted to remember all about Hudson; everything needed to be recorded so that nothing would be forgotten. We laid out Hudson's books and all of our friends and family were delighted at being able to see our little one as he progressed those 30 weeks. Some friends were even inspired to finish their own scrapbooks they had started over a year ago =)
The hospital took many copies of Hudson's little foot prints and we have those in his book as well as on a "Memory" certificate the hospital made for him. The certificate includes a small piece of his thick beautiful hair - we knew he would have a head full of hair! John and I framed the blue certificate in a white frame with a white matte and then added his monogramming (wooded letters John spray painted black) at the bottom of the glass on the frame. To hold the frame we bought a black wooden stand. My sister bought us a plaster kit for hand-prints; the nurses made Hudson's hand-print and added the plaster so we will always have a little hand molded for us to have. Eventually we will have a shadow box made to display the hand as well as the handmade (my mother crocheted) blanket we kept. We opted not have leave the blanket with Hudson and decided to keep it because it had his sweet smell lingering. The smell of Hudson was the best smell we have ever experienced. John and I did, however, give Hudson a new blanket because all babies need a blanket - especially since it is winter and cold.