Bringing Bbay Home...A Year Ago Today

Most parents get to take their bundles of joy home within 3 days of birth. Most families give birth to happy, healthy babies. Most families don’t have to experience walking out of the hospital empty handed. We’re not most families. A day and a half after Liam was born I walked out of the hospital empty handed. I didn’t know if Liam would survive being born with CDH. As the nurse wheeled me down to the car, I fought back the tears. I tried to build a wall to block out my pain, my anger, my confusion. After a 4 hour drive to UCSF and 43 days in NICU, we finnaly got to bring Liam home. We know how very blessed we are. 50% of babies born with CDH don’t survive. 50% of parents of CDHers walk out of the hospital empty handed to never see or hold their babies again. Praise the Lord that we didn’t have to experience that pain. Even though my heart is healing, there will always be scar tissue that is unrepairable.

A year ago today we said "goodbye" to one of our primaries, Cindy, and the awesome NICU staff and doctors.

 

 

Liam was placed in a car seat for the first time.

 

We traded in his name bracelet for a pair of shoes

 

 

Bundled him up for the SF weather

 

 

And after waiting so patiently,

Big sister finnaly got to hold her baby brother

 

 

Tia finnaly got her arms on her nephew

 

 

Cousin Kayla finnaly met her little bean,

and balled like a "baby"

 

 

Cousin Chase got to hold his cousin and see him healthy and without wires or tubes for the first time

 

 

Grandma and Papa got to hang out with little lamb,

hold him and love on him.

 

Today we rejoyced in Liams homecomming anniversary.

The day didnt start out perfect. It started out with Liam having a fever from teething, but it ended very well.

 

After the teeth pain and fever were gone Liam was in an excelent mood

 

Kayla got to hang out with her bean.

 

 

We played pass the baby

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole let Liam wear her glasses

 

 

Then she made me laugh

 

 

Then he decided to take pictures of himself :)

 

Other good news is that Liam is now maxed out on ML's and calories again in his Gtube feeds. Its the first time his stomach has handled feeds since about 5 months. If I can get him to handle 48mls for 20 hours we will be exactly what we were at on his GJ feeds. Praying he can. He only retched in the early mornings now, which is his usual. I have to check in with the GI tomarrow so Im praying he decides that we can put off the GJtube surgery for awhile longer and give Liam a chance to thrive with the Gtube. Things happen for a reason.