The WONDERFUL Day our Miracle Boy turned ONE!!!
From the Time we arrived at Boston Children's Hospital, we were told told numerous times by different Doctors & Professionals that Heterotaxy RAI babies (such as Ryker) have an 85% mortality rate before their first birthdays, meaning that our sweet Ryker only had a 15% chance of seeing his first birthday. This news was devastating, but we were determined that Ryker would beat those odds!
On February 19, 2013 our sweet little Ryker came home from the hospital for his very first time in almost a year. We knew his prognosis was not good, but we were just so grateful that he was HOME & able to spend quality, wonderful time together with us as a family!
A few days before Ryker's birthday he had some issues with some withdrawal, that made the 2-3 days leading up to his Birthday very hard & emotional. But then on the morning of his Birthday he was all bright eyed & smiles, like as if he knew what day it was! It was HIS day! The day everyone told us he wouldn't make it to, the day that we got to Celebrate HIM & all his INCREDIBLE accomplishments! We couldn't have been more proud of our tough & brave little Miracle Baby!!!
First thing as he woke up, I looked at him all snuggled in my arms & said "Happy Birthday Beautiful Boy!" He starred at me & gave me the biggest, sweetest smile, like as if he knew exactly what I was saying to him. He was just as happy & excited as I was for that WONDERFUL day!
Soon Ryker's sweet Sisters were in the room climbing all around him, kissing him & loving him, telling him Happy Birthday & Addi singing "Happy Birthday to you" Then in came the big brothers who were also so excited to tell their baby brother Happy Birthday as well!
During Ryker's life at home, he had medications due every 2 hours, along with breathing treatments, suctioning & shots due every 4 hours & lots of sleeplessness, so Jason & I had come up with shifts for the two of us so we could sleep a little easier. I was the "day nurse" Jason was the "night nurse" So, since Jason had just been up with Ryker all night, it now was 8am & his time to sleep. So the kids & I went out into the living room so Daddy could get some rest before Ryker's Party. :)
We started the morning with a little "photoshoot" of the kiddos :) My kids all put on their Miracle Ryker shirts & I took a bunch of picture of their cuteness :) Here are a few-
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| Myself & my sweet boy while he still had his Patriots jammies on :) |
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| My Babies!!! |
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| I don't think Ryker knew what to think at first :) |
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| My ABSOLUTE Favorite picture of all 5 of my kiddos together! |
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| Looking at sweet Ryker |
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| I love the tenderness of my sweet kids! |
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| & the GooFy-NeSs!! I LOVE Ryker' face here, like "what are you doing Bray?" |
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| We had Ryker's nurse Cari take a picture of the 6 of us :) Love it!! |
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| My sweet Braylee & her baby! |
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| Just the boys :) |
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| Ryker looks so big here, with the big boys!! |
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| The biggest Brother with the littlest Brother :) |
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| Ryker loving on Jadd |
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| Addi squeezing her Baby |
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| The eyes can say wonderful things... |
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| Addi always had a way with just loving him to the absolute fullest!! |
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| My two babies! |
After our little photoshoot, we had wonderful day just being TOGETHER! My kids got to go to the store to pick out their gifts for Ryker together. It was so sweet to see how thoughtful they were with choosing what they wanted, it had to be perfect! :)
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| My Birthday Boy with his Birthday hat :) |
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| Next we had some Pizza & sat down at the table together. Sitting at the table was something we LOVED because it wasn't always possible! |
We had an AMAZING Company called Icing Smiles do Ryker's cake for us. They did such an incredible job! Ryker's siblings LOVED it & I think Ryker did too :)
Going back to how I had mentioned that Ryker had been having horrible withdrawals the days leading up to his birthday. Regardless of that, all day he did incredible! He was happy, alert, smiling & bright eyed! Then right before we did his cake, he was due for his last "rescue dose" of the medication he had been withdrawing from, and about 15 minutes after he got that dose he was OUT!! No matter what we did, we could not keep him awake, he was still so happy & sweet, even though we were being loud & singing Happy Birthday to him, he was just SO tired that he couldn't keep his eyes open.
So in some of these pictures you can see that he's a sleepy baby. It was so sweet :)
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| His BIGGER than LIFE Cake :) |
As much as we wanted to have a HUGE Celebration for Ryker's big day, we knew it was in his best interest to not have people over. We couldn't risk having any germs in our house. So we had two of our FAVORITE nurses come by, Cari & Autumn & then we asked our sweet friend Myndi (The photographer from Myndi B Photography), her Husband Glen & their son Ty to come over & that was it. It was a simple little (germ free) party, perfect for our buddy!
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| Myndi & Ty with Miss Addi |
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| Jadd, Trett & Braylee enjoying their Ryker Cake :) |
At this moment we realized that even though Myndi had been here through SO MUCH with us & Ryker, she had never held him before. So that was a must to check of the list. So here are a few pictures with her & our baby boy!
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| Myndi & Glen with our sweet Ryker |
Then it was present time!! My kids gave Ryker all their little thoughtful gifts & incredible cards that they had picked out for him. Most of the time he was snoozing :) But I think he loved it!
By about the end of the party he was wide awake & bright eyed. Our smiley sweet boy was back. Then he got to enjoy all his gifts & company :)
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| Myself & my Beautiful Boy!! |
Ryker's Birthday was such a WONDERFUL Day! It's a day I will never forget in all my life! I wish with all my heart that he could be with us today as we Celebrate him & his AMAZING life! I love you to the moon & back baby boy! I pray you are having an incredible Birthday with Jesus!! <3
