Merry Christmas!

So I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!!! And, to give everyone an update. Tucker came home on the 18th...and he's doing amazing!! We are so blessed to have our Christmas wish come true...our baby came home for Christmas!! Thank you to everyone who has been following our story and keeping us in your thoughts and prayers...we are so appreciative of all of your support...this wouldn't have happened without you!!! We are one of the lucky families, our baby came home and with all luck won't have to spend anymore time in the hospital, and I can't tell you how wonderful it is for him to be home. My heart still goes out to the families whose babies are still in the NICU, and I pray they will be home soon!

I was sitting tonight rocking Tucker to sleep (well attempting to at least, he didn't go to sleep until maybe an hour ago) and for no reason at all it all the sudden hit me that my baby was FINALLY home. He was throwing a fit, and I sat him on my knees facing me, and as soon as I did that he gave me the biggest smile, and it just melted my heart. I have never felt as much love as I did at that point. He's smiled at me before, but for whatever reason tonight it struck me to my core, and I just started crying. It finally all came out, the thoughts of how lucky I am, my baby is here, he's alive...the baby the doctors all said wouldn't make it, is HOME. He is my miracle...a true gift from God, and I started to wonder, what could I have possibly done in my life to deserve such a wonderful, beautiful gift? And then all the emotions of the NICU came flooding back, and all of the different stages of our stay came flooding back as well. Remembering him laying so tiny in that isolete, hooked up to so many different machines, with IVs and PIAs and all sorts of other things coming out of him. I lost it, I couldn't help it...all of the old fears came back, remembering all the nights I prayed my baby would make it through the night, and how terrified I was all the time I would get THE CALL. And as I sat there crying my eyes out, Tucker stared back at me, smiling and laughing, as if to say it's ok Mommy, I'm here! And I realized in that instant how lucky I am...how blessed my has been and will be with this amazing little boy in it. Yes, we still have setbacks, he's still on oxygen and we're still not sure what is going on with his head size and if he does in fact have cerebral palsy, but my baby is ALIVE...and to me, that is the greatest gift I could ever imagine. All of the tears, the sleepless nights, terrifying moments and prayers have led us to this moment...him being at home, with us, where he belongs! I have never in my life felt as proud as I have these past few weeks, especially the day we brought him home...the day some people said would never come, showing all of the specialists just how wrong they were. I heard a thousand times, babies like Tucker don't live...they just don't, and yet, here he is, thanks to a wonderful and loving God!

I pray that everyone finds peace and joy this holiday season...thank you all for your support and prayers! We are very blessed to have you in our lives!!

Tucker is Coming Home Soon!!!!

So, the doctor came by the other night and told me that they would be weaning Tucker's liter flow to 1 sometime this coming week, and after he's been stable on 1 for 7 days, WE CAN GO HOME!!! She said he would be home before Christmas...and I seriously think those were the last words I heard the rest of the day. Sooo excited...then I realized HOLY CRAP I only have like ten days until he's home....ummmm I really need to get going on his room and getting him stuff!!! Hehehe, nothing like waiting till the last minute!

With all of that said, there are a couple of things I'd like to ask. This is not me trying to be mean, it's just something that needs to be said before he comes home, remember he's still a micro preemie, his immune system and lungs are nowhere near what they should be! Please, if you feel even the slightest bit sick, even if you're not sure please don't come by to see him. What is a cold for us could be completely devastating for him. Little kids can't be around him, especially if they go to pre-school or daycare, they can't tell us when they feel sick, so they could have something without knowing it. Please don't smoke around the house or near him, not only is it bad for his lungs, but we're going to have pure oxygen in the house...we just can't take the chance of something happening. Please, please, please, wash your hands before coming over to play with him, I know babies have to build up their immune systems, but that will have to wait for him, his lungs are still so critical one small thing could send us back to the hospital. Please don't feel like I'm picking on anyone or being rude, if I am I'm sorry...I love you all, but I want to make sure this is the last time we're in the NICU, PICU or whatever.

I love you all...thank you all for all of your support and prayers, we're so excited to get him home!! Without you I know I would have lost my mind a long time ago!!!!

Exciting News!!

So tonight at the hospital, the doctor came by and told me I needed to find a pediatrician, and that I needed to put Tucker's room together because it won't be too much longer until he was home!! She said next week we'll wean him to 2 liters of flow, and if he tolerates that he'll be weaned to 1 liter, and as soon as he's been stable on 1 liter for one to two weeks he'll be able to come home!! We're so close...I was so excited to hear that, his nurses have thought he might be coming home soon, but we haven't had a doctor tell us that!!!! Thank you to everyone who has been thinking of us and praying for us....I was so happy to hear it I started crying...I just didn't know when I'd finally hear those words! I will be posting more when I know more, but so far he's doing great!!! We're super excited, hopefully he'll be our present under our Christmas tree!!!

Tucker's Surgery

Tucker had his surgery today, he went in around 1:30 and was in for about three hours. He was able to be extubated (off the ventilator) right after his surgery which is HUGE. We're so proud of him!!! He's done so well everyone couldn't be more pleasantly surprised. He's on lower oxygen than he was before the surgery which is great, so hopefully this is the change in the right direction that we needed. He's such an amazing boy!!! We'll see how he's doing tomorrow...but so far he's good, besides being incredibly mad about not being able to eat!!! I will keep you all updated on how he's doing!!

Tucker

Thought I'd write a quick note. Just so everyone knows...Tucker is now 6 months old, (as of yesterday) and 13 pounds. Yeah, he's huge! He's going to have surgery next week to give him a G-Tube, and fix his hernia. I don't think he'll be able to get his MRI the same day, but we can always do it later, it's not as important as his surgery. We're hoping once they do this surgery things will get better and we'll be able to get him home soon. I do have to say that I'm nervous about the surgery, they will have to sedate him and put him on a ventilator, and we're praying he'll be able to come off of it the same day. This is the biggest risk with doing this surgery, how long he'll have to stay on the ventilator. It's been a long 6 months, and I'm just praying we can get him home before Christmas, I can handle a lot, but I just don't think I can handle having him in the NICU at Christmastime. Thank you again to everyone who has been praying for us and thinking about us. Hopefully we'll be able to post pictures of him at home soon!!

Need some advice...

So I thought I'd right a quick update and get everyone's opinions on some choices I need to make. First of all Tucker is doing really well. He's now 11 pounds, and becoming more and more active and alert, he smiles now at us...it's wonderful! He's been doing so well that they started letting us give him bottles, he gets two a day and can only take up to 20 mLs, which isn't even a full ounce, but hey you gotta start somewhere!! We've had some hard news, his head wasn't really growing and they were concerned so they decided to do a head ultrasound and found that the ventricles in his brain are enlarged, indicating that his brain is either atrophied or isn't growing properly, but they don't know why. They won't be able to tell until they do an MRI, but they need to wait until he's stronger because they'll have to sedate him to do it. Even with the MRI they might not know why this is happening, and they can't say for sure what kind of problems it will cause or if it will resolve itself. It's another long game of wait and see...but the good news is, he hasn't missed any milestones, and he's got great muscle tone which is awesome! It's just one of those things that is always in the back of your head and you can't shake it off. No matter what happens he's a wonderful beautiful baby, and I'm so blessed to have him, nothing could change how much we love him. He's perfect in our eyes...our own true miracle! He's now on high flow all the time, except for six hours when he's on CPAP but that's a HUGE accomplishment. I have new pictures I'll be putting up soon...he's gotten so big that those of you who have seen him would swear he's a different baby!

Now for the choices I have to make that I need some help with. Some of you know that I was supposed to start at St Mary's this January, but of course with everything going on with Tucker I wasn't able to finish what I needed to to start. Now looking back, I'm not sure if teaching is what I really want to do. Being in the NICU has given me a totally different outlook, and I'm wondering if maybe nursing would be something I could do, or even a respiratory therapist, and again maybe social work. I've been debating these three different possibilities, and I just don't know. No one seems to think that I'd be able to handle being a nurse or an RT, and I don't know maybe I couldn't...but being around babies who need help, it makes me want to learn to help them. I'm a little squeamish so I'd have to get over that in a hurry, but the thought of being able to help give a family hope or comfort or whatever makes me really happy. And to be able to really help them because I know where they're coming from makes me think I can handle it. Now I'm rambling...but I had to put this down before it drove me mad, I'm opening myself up for opinions...please share what you think with me, I welcome all the advice I can get!!! Thank you again to everyone who is following and sharing in our story...we love you!!

Much needed update...

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated everyone...the past month has been HECTIC!! First of all, they stopped letting Tucker have nasal canula or high flow breaks because he wasn't really tolerating them very well. After all this, we had a meeting with Tucker's doctor, nurses and just about everyone else concerned with Tucker to talk about his continued treatment. Dr Durand was so happy with how Tucker is doing that he gave us the timeline of Christmas to come home!!! Well sometime around there...it's so exciting, a month and a half ago they wouldn't even give us a timeline and now they're saying Christmas...SO EXCITING!! Anyway, after a few weeks of no sprints on anything they decided to allow him to go back on high flow sprints, and he's doing great!!! We had a few problems with doctors making ridiculous decisions (he has two primary care doctors now, and these were NOT his primary doctors). But now we're doing good!! He's getting onto bolus feeds, they're going in over an hour right now and they're hoping to get it down to thirty minutes every three hours (he's still being fed by a tube in his stomach), but still it'll be great to get him on regular feedings!! He is gaining weight steadily which is great...actually he's shooting up in weight...9 pounds 5 ounces!!! He's such a little piggy...it's great! He's started acting more like a baby, being awake and hanging out, looking around and liking to be in his swing! He's such an amazing little boy...everyone in the NICU is amazed by him...he is truly my miracle baby. I am the most blessed woman, I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful baby boy!! (Oh and not only can he make his alarms go off...he can also cry...and I mean CRY!!!!) One of the nurses asked me if it bothered me to hear him cry, and I said no, after three months of not hearing a peep out of him it's wonderful to hear his little voice, well BIG voice actually! His coming home will be the most wonderful Christmas gift I can think of...it would make my year!! Thank you to everyone who has followed along with Tucker's story, and who have kept him and us in their thoughts and prayers...we love you all for it!! Anyway, that's our news!!! We're completely thrilled with all of it...and we just pray that he will continue to do as well as he has been!!