Closing a Chapter in Our Lives

Thirty pages and 19,836 words later, Carter's NICU  journal is done. I started writing a NICU journal for him the day he was born and I just wrote my final entry. What a process this has been! When I look back and read here and there I realize how I've forgotten so many little things that happened. I read my excitement as 4lb Carter moved up from eating 7cc's to 12cc's.  Or when he took milk from a bottle for the very first time. And the day his IV was removed. It seems like so long ago. Now...here we are! He's a healthy, 6lb 14 1/2oz baby eating 80cc's from a bottle.

It's 3:00 pm and I've been trying to keep myself busy, anxiously awaiting Tyson's arrival home from work so we can take Brycen to our friends' house and then head up to the hospital to get Carter. I have a lot of emotions and feelings running through me right now. I'm so nervous for him to come home on this stats monitor and I'm hoping I never have to use the oxygen on him. We'll be doing training for the oxygen use tonight. But at the same time, I'm so thrilled for him to be coming home. It will be wonderful having him at home with us and we know the nurses wouldn't send him home if they didn't think he was ready. Brycen and I met Tyson for lunch today and I felt sick the whole time. We both did! We felt so excited and anxious we could hardly eat.

What a wonderful day this is! We look back on the day that Brycen came home from the hospital back when he was in the NICU at EIRMC in Idaho Falls. His 9-day stay seemed like a lifetime. Carter's stay ended up being 5 weeks and 6 days long and in a way it felt the same. And what really makes them the same is the feeling we have today as we're preparing to bring Carter home. It's the exact same feeling we had when Brycen came home: pure joy. It's hard to explain in words how excited we are about this day. If you saw me in person you'd be able to tell! We're just thrilled!

We feel so blessed to have the friends and family that we have. I've been amazed at how many people have been following Carter's story, whether I know them or not. My blog post titled "Carter's Story" went a little more viral than I thought and I've gotten a lot of outreach and heartfelt messages from many people all over the country. I've heard from people who said they heard from people they work with and others who read his story and have been keeping up with him ever since. It's amazing! The picture I posted on Monday of Carter with his feeding tube gone received 126 likes and 36 comments in two days. I posted on Facebook this morning that Carter is coming home tonight. Within 30 seconds there were 18 likes and 3 comments. It's 3:00 pm right now and there are 153 likes and 31 comments on that same status update. It's truly just been amazing! We are so touched by all of the love we have around us. It means so much to us that so many people out there care about us. We don't talk much with most of the "likes", but just that simple "like" shows us that you care. We might as well have been given a hug for each "like" because it feels just the same. (Make that 154 likes on the status! ha ha) We really feel so blessed right now.

At this time I wish to say once more how much we appreciate all of the prayers that have been said on our behalf and on Carter's behalf. Our lives have been touched by those prayers and we've felt them working since he was born. We are so grateful to all of you who have been there for us and supported us during this incredibly trying time. We're so happy to be getting Carter home with us! What a blessing this day will be.