We are home

Carrie got to come home Wednesday. Its been wonderful!

Dear Santa

How bout it Santa? All I want for Christmas is my baby girl home with us.

All we are working on now is eating, she gets really worn out and is very hard to wake up. If we can get her to take all her feedings by mouth, she goes home. 

Also, right after she was born, we thought she might have Down Syndrome and the doctor thought she might too. A test was sent off the day after she was born and it came back positive.  We were pretty sure she did or does but it was nice to get the test back to confirm what we were feeling. We are convinced this will be a wonderful and good thing for our family, challenging at times, but wonderful.

We are so excited to get her home and be able to have our family in one place again and to be able to love on her there and have James and Katelynn know and love her too.

James and Katelynn are excited for Christmas, no presents under the tree yet, we want them to be opened on Christmas. I am excited for Christmas this year because they are going to love it and we won't be rushed at all and can take it easy.

Carrie Jean..a few pictures

Wednesday December 7-no more ventilator!

Thursday December 8-2 less sensors, no art line and a bow!

Thursday December 8-Trevor holding Carrie, tonight she did much better being held than last night.  Yesterday her oxygen levels dropped while we were holding her.

She makes the cutest little scrunched up faces

Early Sunday morning 

Here Carrie is with all of her gear, thankfully most of it is gone now.

We have a baby!

Our little Carrie Jean was born early Sunday morning.  She was 6 lbs. 14 oz and 20 1/2 inches long and a beautiful sweet little baby girl.  She had trouble keeping her oxygen levels up after she was born, so they took her off to the NICU.  She was very sick and they had all sorts of tubes and wires and machines hooked up to her.  Sunday was very scary and we really could have lost her.  I don't think I realized how serious things were until they started getting better. The doctor on call and the nurses kept trying different things and finally got her stabilized, I've been so grateful for them.  Also, I am so grateful for modern medicine! She has been slowly improving and may come home at the end of next week. It's so weird and hard to not be able hold and love on her.  Sunday I got to hold her for maybe 30 minutes before she went to the NICU and total holding time since then has been probably 30 minutes.  But we are getting to hold her now.  Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday we could only look and barely touch. But now we can hold her for a little while once a day-that feels so good!  She is not on a ventilator anymore, no more nitric oxide, no more blood pressure medicines, fewer monitors, and eating through a tube instead of just an iv. Tomorrow she may get to try a bottle and if that goes well, I may be able to nurse her soon.  We are anxious for her to get better and be able to bring her home and meet her big brother and sister.  

Here she is before all of her machines got hooked up.

Bathtime! This is Carrie today being a little bit more alert and sort of awake.

And here she is right after she was born.