3 Months Old (and some exciting news!)

This little lady is 3 months old today! She weighs 7 pounds on the money and we were told tonight that she'll (hopefully) be home by the end of the week! WAHOO!!! It's hard to believe it's finally happening! They told us we need to bring in a car seat tomorrow or on Tuesday so they can have her do a car seat test before we bring her home. They'll put her in the car seat for an hour or two and if she can sit in it safely without her stats falling at all, then she's good to go home!

Yesterday Carly had a minor little surgery (hopefully her last) to have a central line placed. This is what we will use when we bring her home to deliver her TPN. We will be trained this week on how to administer that to her and how to calculate how much she will need daily based on her oral feedings. We will also be CPR trained. We're feeling a little overwhelmed at the thought of having her cares (aka: life) in our hands when she comes home, but we're sure once we're trained we'll feel much, much better about things. There's no way we're bringing her home until we both feel totally and completely comfortable.

This is how Carly looked yesterday right after they placed her central line (the line going into the yellow circle). The line going into her arm is what the hospital has been using, but that has now been removed. The central line is what we will feed the TPN through until her intestines can start absorbing enough nutrients on their own through her oral feeds for her body to grow and thrive.

These are the cute signs the hospital has been making for Carly to mark each month she has been there. They are so cute, but we are glad we won't be seeing any more of these (knock on wood). We are so beyond excited to finally get our little angel home!

Now we need to buck up and get Carly's room ready (gasp!). I know, I know.... it's probably shocking to hear that her room isn't put together yet. We've had it on our to do list for weeks, but our lives have been a whirlwind lately and finding time has been hard because it involves swapping a bunch of big pieces of furniture between two rooms. We planned to get it ready yesterday, but then Mike ended up flying out to Arizona to be with his granddad, who is on the verge of passing away (I will post about Mike's amazing grandpa and Mike's experience visiting him soon) and Carly ended up having her central line surgery, so it didn't happen....yet again. Hopefully we can find time to get it put together bit by bit this week. If not, she may be spending her first few nights in a box (only kidding about the box, but the article in that link is pretty interesting).

We may not have Carly's room prepped yet, but we are prepped with a freezer full of meals! Mike and I spent last Sunday afternoon getting tons of freezer meals made so that we'll be able to focus solely on Carly when she comes home without the stress of having to cook, which will be so nice.

The next chapter in Carly's life is about to begin...yay! It is still filled with many uncertainties, but we are looking forward with hope and faith. We have witnessed so many miracles take place through this experience so far (I'll have to dedicate a future post to sharing some of them) and we know many more are yet to come. This experience is changing us for the better and we are so grateful for it. Yes, it has been hard, but amazingly it hasn't felt hard because we have truly been buoyed up by our Savior. His atonement is real.

Favorite quote this week:

"We are not obedient because we are blind. We are obedient because we can see!"
-Elder Boyd K. Packer

Life rules.