
Tuesday I shared how we brought Kade home from the hospital over the weekend. It truly has been amazing having him home and I have a hard time putting him down because for five weeks there were so many times I couldn’t hold him. As you know, we had to come home without Jax. When I first left the hospital without either of my babies, it was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced in my life. The pain of leaving your baby or in my case, babies, in the nicu, is a pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I would never want anyone to experience what that is like because it damages you in a way you can’t quite put into words. I never imagined that anything would be harder or hurt worse than leaving them both there, but I was so very wrong.
While I am beyond thrilled to have Kade home and I wouldn’t change it for the world, coming home with one of my babies and not the other is breaking me. I had hoped I would be too busy, too sleep-deprived, too anything, to be able to focus on how upset I am about having one of my babies home and not the other, but that’s not the case. I am very much too tired; I feel like I’m running in a race and can’t stop to catch my breath, I’m very much busy; between having a baby home and everything that comes with having a baby home, my older two boys, cleaning, laundry, school, and still trying to find time to get up to the hospital to see Jax, you would think I wouldn’t have time to be that upset or to be able to focus on how upset I am. Most of the day, I am too busy to think about it, to let myself go to that place that hurts, but random times throughout the day the pain of not having Jax home hits me.

I have started crying in the middle of folding laundry. I had to fight back tears while playing with Kade yesterday because while I was soaking in that beautiful moment with Kade, Jay, and Kage, I was aching to be able to do the same with Jax. I cried listening to I’m already there by Lonestar on the way home from seeing Jax the other day. I’ve fought back tears making bottles because, as odd as it sounds, I want to be making double what I am, but I’m not because I only have one baby here right now. The crying doesn’t last very long, but it rips through me randomly as you can see and I’ve just accepted it. I’ve accepted the pain in my heart is going to be there until I have both my babies home with me, until I can cuddle, kiss, and hold them both whenever I want to. Until I’m even more sleep-deprived than I already am and until I’m even more busy than I already am. I know that the random tears are going to happen until Jax comes home to be with us too.
We were so close to having him home. He had gone eight days without dropping his heart rate, he is eating all his bottles, and gaining weight and earlier this week they talked about having him come home in a day or two, he even passed his car seat test, but on that 8th day, he dropped his heart rate again and has dropped it every day since. It’s breaking my heart. He was so close to coming home, we were so close to having him here, I got my hopes up, and then watched as they all crashed down because he has to stay longer and now we don’t know when he will be coming home. We don’t know if he will be home for Christmas like we had hoped. I’ll be talking to the doctor today to see what he plans to do to find out why Jax is dropping his heart rate again and I can only pray it’s nothing major.
