One Year Ago Today

We are celebrating Ryder's Hospital Birthday today. He finally came home from the hospital after 28 days in the NICU. Looking back I am in awe as to what he went through and survived. Today he is a healthy, active one year old. These pictures are from the day he was born until he came home.

Finally, home at last. Being held by Aunt Janelle and sound asleep. In his car seat all snuggled down and asleep.
Big sister Rylee finally getting to hold him and cuddle with him. Could that smile get any bigger?

My first picture...Where are my clothes?

Sleeping so peaceful, except for the darn feeding tube.
This is the most expensive bed he will ever sleep in. Just the rental per day was $30,000. They named this bed the Cadillac Bed. He was in this for 4 days.

Wow!! what is happening to me. I don't feel good. This was a day after having his chest tube removed. He was still fighting the infections and sleeping most of the time.

The infections were gone and he was starting to feel better. The final hurdle was eating on his own for 24 hours. They diagnosed his reflux and gave him prevacide. He then started right in with the bottle. It would wear him out after about 5 minutes and he wanted to sleep.

He started eating on his own and came home 9 days later. It took him 30 minutes to eat half ounce and we repeated this every 2 hours.

I am so thankful that he is healthy and strong today. We had amazing doctors and nurses that took care of him during his stay. The stories they told me about promptings they received during those first two weeks. Ryder was truly protected and blessed.