Home Sweet Caden....

Well, to say we were completely happy to bring Caden home before Christmas would be an understatement, and to say we were and have been completely overwhelmed would, also, be an understatement. When we went to pick Caden up from the hospital on Tuesday we walked in to him vomiting everywhere and choking on his vomit. The nurse said he had been doing this all day. My heart started to race and my stomach tied into knots as I was wondering if I was really ready for all of this. I definitely wanted Caden home, but at the same time I wanted him to be ready to go home. I asked the nurse if all of Caden's doctors felt that he was ready to leave, and she said they felt he was doing well enough to go home and we would just have to be very watchful of him. She gave us all the discharge instructions, extra bulb syringes and off we were like two first time parents. Then we drove our screaming son home in 5:00 traffic. When we arrived home the man who was supposed to change the filter on our heater was sitting in the kitchen waiting for us to tell us we shouldn't be running our heater because the ducts are in bad shape. That is a whole other story!!!

The girls were so excited to see their new baby brother and that brought much joy to my heart. They just looked at him like he was the most perfect little guy in the world and we agreed! It was a bit of an adjustment handling his feeding tube and medications, but we were able to manage it.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were great. Natalie was telling everyone how her Christmas wish came true by having Caden home. It warmed my heart every time she said,"This is the best Christmas ever!" I agreed, but was still tremendously nervous with all he has going on. Also, we almost ended up back in the hospital on Christmas because Cara stuck a small mint up her nose and we couldn't get it out. Never a dull moment around here!!!

Caden is doing pretty well at home. His best quality has been that he sleeps through the night! He does have a lot of reflux issues and because he doesn't swallow well with his open palate he is constantly choking and gagging. It makes me so nervous and I feel like I have that darn bulb syringe glued to my hand! I never found much use out those things with the girls, but it has been a life saver with Caden.

We are ever so grateful for all of your kind words and prayers. Although we haven't been able to see anyone, we feel surrounded by so much love and support. Thank you. We are trying to get used to this new crazy life. I think it is really going to take some time for us to be able to manage Caden and the girls and just everyday life. I am hoping we find our own "normal" soon. I hope all of you had a very merry Christmas!

Mary

Looking at Tuesday!

So we are being officially told that Caden is looking to go home on Tuesday. This probably means Wednesday, but we are holding out hope that Tuesday will be the day. Either way it should be before Christmas and that would be great! We would love to have our family together for the holidays, especially for the girls. I think it has been so hard for them to have not seen their brother since the day after he was born. They have excluded all visitors to the NICU besides parents because of the H1N1 virus. Chad and I have been the only visitors to see Caden for the past 5 weeks. I think he will be very happy to see three smiley faces when he gets home!!

We will be completely home bound for quite some time. With all of the viruses out their right now we definitely do not want a return visit to the hospital any time soon!!! Plus he will be hooked up to his feeding machine 24 hours a day until we can consolidate the feeds over a shorter time period. This is because he has had a lot of vomiting after eating and the doctors do not want him to lose weight.

Caden was really alert tonight when we were with him. It is so nice to see him with his eyes open. I think he will be so glad to break out of the hospital and be home with his family. We will be thrilled as well!!!

Mary

Introducing Caden

Since Caden was born, November 12, 2009, our life has been completely consumed with being with him in the NICU and trying to find some time to spend with the girls. That has literally been our life for the past 5 weeks. Unfortunately, it has been impossible to update everyone on how he is doing so I thought a blog would be a good way to keep people posted on where things stand with him. I also want to take this opportunity to thank so many of you for the fantastic dinners, sweet gifts, thoughtful notes, and countless prayers. I want you all to know that they have been so appreciated and we feel beyond blessed to have amazing friends and family in our lives that have made our lives functional in these past weeks. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

Well, as you all know things have been quite a whirlwind since Caden's birth. What we were told all along was most likely an isolated cleft lip and palate has been much more than that. Caden has undergone surgery to place a g-tube for feedings, an unsuccessful heart catheterizing procedure, a heart surgery to close up a hole in his heart, been put on a ventilator, and undergone numerous other procedures and tests. He has been on heart medication, blood pressure medication, antibiotics, 3 reflux medications, and others I probably can't even recall. He went through a period of time where they thought he was having seizures and then decided he wasn't. He, also, just recently had two teeth pulled that were growing out of the gum that is clefted. I guess this is pretty common in cleft lip/palate babies.

Whew!! I am not sure if I have covered everything, but that is a pretty good synopsis thus far. For a while it seemed we were getting slapped with bad news right and left, but, thankfully, lately things have settled down a bit. He is now breathing on his on, down to just reflux medication and basically just trying to put on weight. He is still a little below birth weight, but is definitely gaining weight better than he was before. Our hope at this point is to hopefully have him home for Christmas, but we are learning that time runs much differently in the hospital setting. What you are told might happen today usually doesn't happen until tomorrow or the next day so we will remain patient and prayerful and keep our fingers crossed too!

So for now we will continue to thank God for the progress Caden has made, and pray that things will continue to go in the right direction for Caden.

Mary