Here with me

This is what Owen looked like the first time we saw him after his open heart surgery.  He was just a little bit less then two months old.  Lived his little life in the NICU and only been in his mommas arms four times.  This image has been burned in my mind ever since. This is the moment when "keeping him here" became incredibly real for me.  If he can survive this, nothing else matters as long as he is here, here with me.  If he learns to walk and talk, that's awesome.  If he gets to go to school to learn to read and do math, great.  None of that matters if he's not here.   So while my mom promised him a trip to Disney world. I promised him I'd keep him here, here with me.  

25%

They say the loss of a child is the worst loss someone can go thru.  Just the thought of losing a child can be paralyzing or make you do crazy things.  2 mos after Owen was born Nick and I were forced to go beyond it being "just the thought" by doctors during long board room type meeting where they threw all kinds of what-ifs, percentages, side affects, future surgeries and so on at us.  After they were done talking this female dr turns to nick and I to say "Let us know if you need more time to make your decision because there is also the loving choice of just letting him pass".   They had just told us his next step was open heart surgery with a 25% survival rate.  If he survived he would need multiple more surgeries including a kidney transplant by age 5.  At this point we were also told that Owen was completely blind.  We could tell he sensed light but that was it.  The answer was a no brainier.  25% is better than 0%.  Do everything humanly possible to keep him Here.....Here with us.  You all know the rest.  But I have never been able to forget the feeling of a dr saying to me "the loving choice of just letting him pass" 

Getting to hold Owen one last time before heart surgery 

The struggle is real

Im going to give this another go.  It's been almost 2 years since I've posted.  There have been lots of good things to write about, I really mean lots....birthdays, teeth lost, kc trips, beach trips, school awards, weddings, holidays, baseball games, new nephews and a 4th child!! I just couldn't bring myself to post about all these goods things knowing that I wasn't ready to post about how I was really feeling about struggling with Owens happiness.  I named this blog years ago "living for Owen" and here I found myself not sure what that meant or how to do it.  We had brought another perfectly healthy child into this world that I am to love, protect and make happy.  All while I'm struggling with my imperfectly healthy child already in this world that I love, protect but do not feel I make him happy.  Something changed in Owen after we moved to South Carolina.