Home Free!!!!

YIPEE!!!!

Archived... from last Saturday. =)

Yesterday, we finished an 84-day stay in the NICU when Flara was finally able to come home!!!! What a relief and an answer to prayer that we were able to bring our little girl home and complete our family... right before Daddy's birthday!

We wish we could thank each person individually who has been holding little Flara up in prayer, as well as praying for our family. We have been through the roughest spots in our life, but God sustained us through it all, and is still sustaining us!

It was great to bring Flara out into the hallway where she was able to really meet her big Sissy. Miss Noël was proudly sporting her 'Big Sister' shirt and calling out "BeeBee" when I brought our little girl out of the 'Butterfly Cove.' It was fun sending Mike text messages and pictures in anticipation of bringing Flara out forEVER!

I thought we had little to pack into our car, but we actually had a lot. =) Mostly, it was things given to us at discharge like extra bottles and diapers, but it ended up filling our trunk. Included, too, was a boat load of bottles of frozen milk. We had enough to fill our big ole cooler! It was a very chilly day, so we had to quickly get everything into the car, and for our first time, wrangle TWO kids into the car! Whew!

Although we were super excited to close this chapter of our lives, it was extremely difficult to say goodbye to people who have come to mean so much for us over the past 3 months. When I walked into Flara's room for the final time, her primary that day was sitting in a chair. We just looked at each other, shook our heads, and declared we were NOT going to cry. Some of our primaries, we didn't even get to tell goodbye because Flara snuck out before we were anticipating. Getting into the car, we had to give our 'for real' final goodbye with our primary. That was really sad. Mike commented going home that when we were told to have happy lives all together, that he didn't want it to not include her. I agreed. When someone brings your baby through their (hopefully) toughest trial in their life, and helps to walk you through the experience as well, a close-knit bond is formed...