Counting Down

My heart is racing, my chest is tight, and I feel like my head is spinning.

That's how I've been feeling A LOT lately.

I'm so nervous for Carter's surgery.

Well, I'm not so much nervous for his surgery, but for the days afterward.

I HATE the idea that he will have to be intubated again, but I KNOW that this surgery is going to be life-changing for him. It's for the greater good, so I'm trying to keep my eye on the prize.

He's going to have three different surgeons working on him along with a few tests...I'm guessing that it's going to be about eight hours when everything is said and done. The Plastic Opthalmological surgeon is going to be loosening his eyelid, the Plastic surgeon will be completely repairing his soft palate and replacing the hard palate prosthetic, and the Urologist will be working on a few things. Cardiology will be doing another Echocardiogram (which I'm EXTREMELY nervous for), and Audiology will be performing an ABR (hearing test). We have no idea how long Carter will be in the hospital. For a "typical" kid this would be a one/two night stay, but for Carter it will depend on how his airway is after they pull the tube out.

I don't remember being this nervous for his last surgery, and I think that it's because he had only been home a couple of months, and had already spent nine days in the hospital during that time. He's SO much a part of our family now. I just know that this is going to be hard.

While I was explaining to Mikey and Jovie how next week was going to happen, Mikey told me that he's going to be really sad when Carter leaves. That might not sound like a big deal to people who don't know Mikey, but to those that do...it is! He rarely expresses much emotion unless it's excitement over a video game. We're hoping that once Carter gets transferred out of the PICU, the kids will be able to go up there for a visit. I think it might be good for them to see where Carter is.

Carter has been kicking butt developmentally lately. He's making all kinds of new sounds, and is getting so much stronger when you sit him up. Even his feeding has been going well....I've hardly had to use his G Tube at all. It will be exciting to see what he does after his soft palate is repaired. It should help him to eat a lot easier.

So, here we are in countdown mode. In less than a week, we'll be back up at the hospital. At least we're going there for a surgery and not for a sickness. I hope that this whole post doesn't come across as whining, because I truly do not mean it that way. We are very lucky. There are a few kids out there who could use our prayers right now.

First, there's sweet Ella Grace. Isn't she the cutest?! She is one of our little friends with an extra chromosome, and is very sick with Leukemia right now. She could definitely be lifted up in prayer right now.

Also, one of Carter's therapist friends had a new baby who is in the NICU battling an infection.

As always thanks for your love and support!

Feelin' Sad

I feel sad.

There have been a few events over the last couple of days that have made me feel sad.

Why would I feel sad when I have this?

Because, I feel sad for the rest of the world. The people who will never have the opportunity to have somebody like Carter be a part of their family. In my opinion, his chromosomes being shuffled around differently only makes him perfect.

He is perfect.

That perfection emits a perfect love.

The love is so much greater than I can describe with words, and it reaches out beyond just our immediate family. It has touched grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, distant cousins, and beyond. If only I would have known during those first few weeks when we were mourning who we thought Carter was going to be. I had no idea that his differences were something to be celebrated.

We are the lucky ones.

We are so blessed.

Not only do we have Carter, but we have an amazing family who accepts him and loves him just the way he is. We couldn't ask for more. Carter is so lucky to have such a wonderful group of people to rally around him.

We went to my niece's birthday party tonight. Emily just turned 10 years old, and is simply sweet. . During the party, she showed us a book that she had written as a project for school. I want to share the book with you, because it brought tears to our eyes. The pictures truly don't do this justice. It is simply beautiful.,....and perfect.

The book is titled "All About Carter" and was written and illustrated by Emily.

Check out the adorable Oxygen Cannula across his face.

My cousin Carter was born March 27, 2009. Carter has a lot of problems like he has one ear, has a feeding tube, has Oxygen, and has a cleft lip. But under all of those things he's just a unique baby.

My cousing Carter warms my heart every time I see him. He's the cutest baby in the whole wide world.

I think Carter is very special because he he's very unique and has problems. But just because he has problems, doesn't mean he won't be able to do things that other can babies do.

My cousin Carter was in the NICU for a long time because he needed special care before he could come home. A NICU is where babies stay if they need special care or are very sick.

Carter has a special bottle to get fed out of. Some of his feedings are from a feeding tube. (for the record, I LOVE the little G tube too!)

Carter is home now and sleeps in his crib.

It was flu season, so we couldn't go and see him at his house because we didn't want to take any chances of getting him sick.

Now flu season is over and we can go see Carter.

Carter is 11 months old. Just about one year old. He's getting big.

Now, isn't it just so sweet?! To think that she could write about anything in the world, and she chose Carter. Thank you Emily! You made my day, and I KNOW that it warms Carter's heart to see you too!

Emily's older sister, Samantha, showed her love for Carter in a different way. On Friday, she participated in a 5K race with some of our family (more pics of this to come later). She wanted to show her support for Carter by making her very own Team Carter shirt.

It reads: "Sam and Bam (her BFF) are with Team Carter". It has a picture of her and her friend on the top, our logo in the middle, and a picture of Carter on the bottom. As you can see, this shirt took a lot of work, and it was AWESOME! Just like the book, the pictures don't do it justice.

Thank you girls for loving Carter. He loves you too!! I can't wait to see what kind of trouble you all get into as you grow older.

Rambling

It's past midnight here, and the little guy has decided that he wants a late night playing session. I tried joining him, but he's more interested in talking to his firefly than talking to me. I'm hoping that his UTI isn't coming back. He woke up pretty upset, and it took a long time to calm him down. He does have a pretty nasty diaper rash, so that could be something to do with it, but I'm really not convinced. I took his PJs off to check him over while he was having a fit, and he's fine as long as I don't try and put the PJs back on. I guess he just doesn't like them tonight. If you were to come to our house right now (which would really freak me out because who comes to your door at 12:30 am??), you'd see a baby playing on the floor in nothing but a diaper. Don't judge me.

I'm sitting here wondering what the morning brings. Today was such an awesome day, and it's been a while since we've had one like this. Carter had physical therapy, and it was one of those sessions where his airway sounded perfect and he worked really hard while making it look easy. It's so cute to see your baby start to develop muscles...I never really noticed it in my other two, but with Carter I can see that he's getting forearm muscles and calf muscles. He's like my little body builder! I think that he's finally regained most of his strength from being sick all month, and with that I can see him improving on his head control and sitting. I am simply amazed at how much his hand eye coordination has improved as well. If you dangle a toy in front of him, he can usually get it within three tries. That's huge!

OK, enough rambling. I hope that everyone has a great day tomorrow....I think that I should probably set the timer on the coffee pot...I'm going to need it! I'll end this post with a few new pics.

Goals, Goals, Goals, Goals

Well, it was that time of year where we set Carter's yearly goals. He did a good job in achieving most of the goals that were set for him when he first came out of the NICU because....well.....he's amazing!

I just barely signed the paperwork to confirm the goals. One of them was...."will sit unassisted".

Do you think that we may need to re-think our goals for this year?

It was for about 15 seconds, but there was not one wobble until the very end. Go baby go!

As you can see from my sidebar, we started a fund for Jenn and Yan. They did not have insurance, so everything is a complete loss. If you would like to help them out, you can ChipIn. Thanks for your prayers...they are very much appreciated! Amazingly enough, they got so much help from friends and the community, that they were able to clean the house out completely in six hours! Jenn and Yan are now in a basement apartment and are starting to rebuild their lives.

Jenn And Yan

If you have a moment, could you please spare a prayer for my friends Jenn and Yan.

Jenn is a single mom who adopted little Yan from Hong Kong. Yan has Down syndrome. Jenn and I met on an Ebay selling forum about 4 years ago, but didn't get very close until this last year (after Carter was born). She is a Speech Language Pathologist, and has always been very helpful in steering me in the right direction to find help for Carter. Jenn has been a tremendous support to me, and I thank her dearly for that.

They live in the Nashville area where all of the flooding is going on. Here is a picture of her house when it started to flood (I believe hers is on the left).

Here is a picture of her house a few hours later. The water rose as high as her door handles, and actually picked up her furniture and moved it around her house. Her fridge was completely tipped over, and as you can imagine...she lost almost everything. She is very grateful that she and her precious angel are safe, but could really use some prayers right now. Poor little Yan does not understand why they can't just go home. So, if you could just send a good thought, or a little prayer her way, I know that she'd appreciate it.