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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

A story of Miracles

I realized for those who might not follow facebook I should do a much better job of updating the blog!
We had an incredible Chick Fil A fundraiser last Thursday. It was 3 hours packed full of friends!! It was like a wedding reception. Have all your friends from so many walks of life all in one place! It was great. Many thanks to all you came and donated items for Hannah's Hope! We have filled up all of our bags!

We also got news last week that our birth mother did show up on the 23rd. And as far as we can tell, everything was there at our first court appointment, which means all that is left is for us to show up on March 18th and promise to love and care for these two precious children for the rest of our lives - THAT I AM VERY READY TO DO!!! VERY exciting news!!! Thanks for all your prayers last week!!

And it is March 1st - we leave in 11 days. I'm starting to feel the crunch. My calendar is packed full between now and then. Including my son's 7th birthday on Wednesday and we are having his party Friday night the 11th! That's right -just hours before we take off we are celebrating a life that is a miracle to me and Jay! (Side note - we rented the local indoor soccer field near our house - we are having a football combine with these boys. then playing a football game and maybe a soccer game. doesn't that sound like fun? I cannot take credit at all. Carter knew what he wanted and then he and daddy dreamed up something big!) Carter's story is another walking miracle. Carter being here reminds me on a daily basis that God still works miracles. My pregnancy is a very long story that we will skip - it was bad, that's all that needs to be said! I made it weeks farther than my doctor ever thought - miracle #2 - first being getting pregnant to begin with.

Carter was born in the middle of the night at almost 35 weeks. The doctors thought he was fine and left him in the room with me and Jay. All the family had gone home to get some sleep. Me, having just been through labor, I was out - snoozing! Jay was holding Carter in the corner in a rocking chair and a nurse came in and said "I just feel like I need to check him, I'm sorry." (miracle #3 )She turns on the light and Carter is blue! She takes him away in a rush and we don't see or hear a word for hours. I finally send Jay and told him he better find somebody and find out what is going on! Skipping details, Carter's lungs were very immature and he was intubated and sent to another hospital to a NICU where he stayed intubated for a week. Part of his stay included a collapsed lung requiring a chest tube. Fast forward a bit through the NICU stay - We went home after 2 weeks - that's right, he was intubated for 7 days, weaned to CPAP then to O2 and he progressed so rapidly we went home at 2 weeks of age! Miracle #4. That was unbelievable to all of his nurses. When your in the NICU you are in the most critical area first, then progress to the step down once you are breathing on your own and starting to eat from a bottle, etc. I can remember his nurses from the first week being astounded when we were going home.
So here we are and tomorrow we will celebrate Carter turning 7 and he is HUGE! He is one of the tallest in his grade. I love to tell people he was a premie and how far he has come. I fully believe it all goes back to that nurse who felt the tug to come into my room and turn on the lights the night Carter was born. I have no clue who she was and we never saw her again. She saved my son's life. So, I do thank you from the bottom of my heart for being our miracle.
Lesson learned, God can use you in very simple ways to do some VERY BIG miracles. All she did was turn on the lights to look.

This is another stepping stone to our story. Jay and I always wanted many children, all of my pregnancies were not the best and each got worse and each child came earlier and earlier. My doctor even looked at me while I was pregnant with Carter and told me if I wanted to be around to raise my children, this one would be my last. When someone says that - you say "Yes mam!" Jay and I really looked at our family and felt so blessed to have 3 healthy children all here and accepted we were done having children 7 years ago. I even have a stepping stone at my front door with the 3 kids footprints that I had done for Jay on Father's day the year Carter was born that it "was set it stone" we were done having kids! We could not put my life at risk again and I could not live through another premie.

It didn't take a year for my heart to break for more children. WE had decided we were done, but God knew we were not. I love that my heart has been broken for the orphan and that I see things more clearly now. If my pregnancies had been easy, I'm pretty sure I would have kept on birthing babies and might have missed this calling. I'm so excited to meet my children in a few days! It's that same anticipation when you are at the end of your pregnancy and you just want to hold them! I feel that now! I am so ready to put my arms around my children, I just can't stand it!

And when I look back at all the details falling in too place over the last year for this adoption, there are miracles after miracles, some of them very little (like turning on the lights) that all add up to a very big miracle in our family.

Happy 7th Birthday Carter! We love you!

3 comments:

  1. So beautiful, Candi! Love hearing more of your story...or, I should say, GOD's story for your family! Love all the miracles that He has done in your lives! Thanks for posting on the blog, especially for the few of us (like me!) who are not on FB! :)

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  2. Uncle Scott's gonna have to stop reading the blog. I cry evertime. Perhaps I'll stick with Facebook. :)

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  3. love hearing about your preemie. we have a soon to be 7 year old preemie ourselves! Those NICU nurses are incredible... following you all as you add to your family. so excited for you.

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