First Night Home

July 28^th brought us home to sleep for the first time in almost a week. First things first Monkey (our cat) was excited to see her mom.

MONKEY ASLEEP BETWEEN LAUREN'S LEGS

Coming through the front door brought us what seemed like a wave of emotions. Almost a week ago, we walked out the front door to head to the doctors office for a routine ultra sound. A time when we could hear the beating of our boys’ hearts, see their little organs and extremities take shape and the progression from the week before. Seeing the couch where Lauren spent the last five weeks doing her best trying to keep the babies in the safest spot possible. The book what to expect when expecting, our calendar full of appointments and planning, the paint chips for their bedroom, and mostly the memory of those four little arms and four little legs pushing and kicking inside Lauren’s belly, gone, just a memory. Just a memory, with nothing to replace the emptiness we now felt as the boys lay in an incubator and we walk in to our home helpless to the fact that all we can do is pray and hope that Carter and Easton are in the hands of only the best, most skilled professionals. We, the two of us were at a place, not home, but a house where we finally recognized the surroundings and could breathe. As we lay helplessly in bed we did the only things we could. I prayed for our family like we had done every night since the time we found out we were pregnant and Lauren pumped. The two things parents could do and we did it to the very best of our abilities, as if someone’s life depended on it, because not one life did but two.

A phone call to the Hospital around 11:30 pm brought a sigh of relief as we told the nurse our secret pin number to verify who we were. The information seemed to bring us a calming sensation, to let us take that deep breath. Carter had been completely weaned off the Dopamine and was on room air, the ventilator, only assisting him in is breathing, not breathing for him. His Co2 levels were at an acceptable range and his blood sugar levels at a point where the insulin was not needed. Easton had had continued his recovery from the surgery, his tattoo was now pasted to the side of his incubator. Easton’s levels were able to satisfy the doctors to move him from the oscillator to the ventilator. Easton is still in need of a PICC line as we draw closer to that 7 day mark where infection becomes a risk with his umbilical IV line.

But the best news was that the boys were continuing to make progress.    

CARTER HOLDING MOMMY'S THUMB

EASTON ON VENTILATOR

CARTER BUNDLED UP