back to parker's house

It was a year ago this month (Sept. 19 to be exact) that we left our home and temporarily moved to Parker's House to await Carter's arrival. Because I had a pre-term labor scare at 31-weeks and we live several hours from Duke, the OBs at Duke gave us two choices: (1) induce labor at 37-weeks, or (2) relocate to the Durham area and wait on Carter to arrive when he was ready. We chose option #2 to allow Carter's lungs as much time as possible to mature, and so we packed everything we could into 2 cars, including Lucy, and drove away from our home, friends, and family.

I remember installing the car seat and not knowing if we'd ever use it. I remember the pit in my stomach from not knowing whether the next time I entered my home would be with Carter or to plan his funeral. We lived for many months with the knowledge of how horrible CDH is and as much as we tried to remain positive, there's still that nagging whisper that constantly brings you back to reality.

Well...in the same month that we started our journey at Parker's House, one year later, we will return. This time, we'll pack the cars with all we can fit into them, plus Carter. Carter is scheduled to have his surgery this month to repair an abdominal wall hernia and place a G-tube. Luckily, my Aunt & Uncle who live in Colorado will be visiting this month with their two Boxers (yes, we are a Boxer-loving family), so they'll be house-sitting for us while we're gone. Great timing :)

We met with the Surgeon several weeks ago and he feels much better about performing the surgery now, as opposed to when Carter was still in the hospital, because he's much stronger and bigger. We've been given the gift of a wonderful Anesthesiologist (thanks to B.H.) and the same Surgeon who repaired Carter's diaphragm. We feel like we've asked all the right questions, done all we can do, and are now ready.

Carter has a Clinic appointment coming up soon (prior to surgery). The feeding secrets that we've been keeping will be revealed to the Doctors at that appointment and we'll discuss then what the plan should be. What does that mean? We don't exactly know. All we know is that Carter is not the same baby he was when we met with the Surgeon and scheduled the surgery. We know that he didn't see his OT for two weeks and she was amazed at the progress he made when she evaluated him this week.

So, we need all the happy thoughts, prayers, and finger crossing you can give us. Stay tuned and we hope to share all the feeding news with you soon.