A Day for Fathers

Happy Father's Day to all of the wonderful men in my life! My wonderful husband, dad, father-in-law, and grandfather are all such important people to me and I love them so much. Thank you for all you do! I'm especially grateful for Tyson today and how awesome of a dad he is to our two sweet boys. I love you so much!

It was hard celebrating Father's Day without Brycen today. But we were blessed to be able to spend a good portion of the day at the hospital with Carter for his first Father's Day. We went to sacrament meeting then went to the hospital. It was a really nice day for us.

Father of the Year goes to this guy! It's been a rough one for us and having another baby in the NICU has been especially trying. But he's been my rock and my strength during all of this. He helped me get through these last two weeks and I'm so grateful for him. He's such a great father and husband. I don't know what I'd do without him!

This is Tyson's Father's Day gift from Carter. Each baby in the NICU gave their dads a bottle of Dad's root beer with a paper tie. Attached to the tie was their footprint and the following poem:

I'm starting out with little feet

And yes my tiny toes are sweet

You'll take me home and in a while

I'll start to coo and laugh and smile

We'll soon be having lots of fun

When I can roll and crawl and run

What comes next, we'll start to chat

About this and this, and that and that

And then one day you'll be tickling my toes

And think to yourself how fast time goes

I'll have added inches to my height

My strength and growth will be quite a sight

So just in case you might forget

Upon this tie, my foot I've set

Happy Father's Day!

Talk about make me cry! What a sweet little gift for these dads of NICU babies. I just love McKay-Dee Hospital's NICU staff. They're just wonderful!

Brycen and I got Tyson a present as well, just not as meaningful or nearly as sweet:

He needed a new drill SO badly! His old one broke and he's needed one multiple times ever since.

Carter has met some milestones over the weekend! 

The first was his advancement into a "big boy bed":

 He's been in a covered isolette since he was born. They tried him in one of these open beds once, but he wasn't able to keep his temperature at a good place to stay in it for very long. We were disappointed to come see him in a covered isolette again. But on Friday I came in and found the covered isolette empty and him in one of these open beds. It was so exciting!

We love being able to see him so well and easily pick him up.

And a very exciting and HUGE milestone:

Carter has officially started eating from a bottle! Last Wednesday one of the nurses told us he was starting to show cues that he wanted to eat from a bottle. We were so happy and excited to hear that! They said they'd start him on one as soon as he started showing more cues. On Friday night one of the nurses gave him 25cc's of his 36 with the bottle and the rest was gavaged. We were so excited to hear that news! Today I got to give him his bottle. The nurse said he gets one bottle a day, and they saved it for one of the times we were going to be there. At 1:00 pm I got to give it a go. He took 10cc's of 39 and we were so proud!

Burping my tiny guy

Carter discovered the hard way on Friday that his feeding tube can come out. He's pulled it out more since, and it makes me so sad to see his sore face after that tape comes flying off. Poor kid! Brycen pulled his feeding tube out 4 times in the 9 days that he was in the NICU.

And we feel so blessed to have access to the Patient Cam in the NICU! We get to watch Carter on the webcam when we're at home and it's just been wonderful. The camera has been so helpful while he's been in there. Tomorrow will be 16 days that Carter has been in the NICU - one week longer than Brycen was in the NICU and we still have a ways to go. If we didn't have this webcam it would be so much more difficult. We get to wake up and see him on the computer, then every night we don't go to bed without saying goodnight to him. It's the best! Talk about a blessing.

This evening we were watching Carter's 7:00 cares on the webcam and noticed after all of them were done and it was time to eat that the nurse put a burpy on him and picked him up. When she didn't come back, we realized that she had taken him out to give him a bottle. Yay! We were so excited! We're glad that they're giving him a bottle when he's showing cues and not just giving him one a day. Carter is doing really well and progresses all the time. Each day is just another day closer to the time we get to take him home. Brycen being in Idaho has been hard for us, but we're so grateful for our family members who have been so willing to watch him for us so we can spend some extra time with the baby and prepare for him to come home. We're excited to see Brycen this coming weekend though! We miss our boys and it's hard having both of them gone. But Brycen's having a blast and Carter is where he needs to be right now. I can't complain!