What happend on Sunday?

Thank you so much to everyone who has commented on our blog or personally emailed us since since Sunday night. I cannot begin to tell you how much we truly appreciate the outpouring of love, support and prayers for our family during the loss of our precious little boy, Tristan. As I mentioned in my entry on Monday, this was so unexpected....and yet it wasn't. When you receive a diagnosis of Trisomy 18 you are told the statistics, you know the reality which is why our only prayer was for Tristan to be born alive and have at least one day with us - he was! As the days went by we started praying that we could take him home from the hospital - we did! Then day-by-day we loved Tristan with all of our heart and held nothing back. We had 56 days of miracles - so much more than we ever prayed for or even believed was possible. We celebrated every day whether it was Christmas every night in December, visiting Santa Claus, celebrating his 1st Christmas Eve, celebrating his 1st Christmas, having him dedicated at our church, celebrating his 1st New Year's Eve, celebrating his 1st New Year's Day, Disney night, Jaguar football night, bath nights or nightly "dress ups" with all 3 boys taking picture after picture - we lived in the moment and lived every day to the fullest!!!!

I know so many of you were wondering what happened on Sunday prior to Tristan passing away, as we've had many comments saying they were shocked. Let me start off by saying, we were absolutely shocked. Tristan had a great night Saturday night, his apnea monitor did not got off, his color was perfect, he took all 25 ml of feeding every 3 hours and the normal reflux that caused drool/formula to run down his mouth. I stayed awake from 10:30pm-2:00am watching him and wiping his little mouth, we switched sides and Trayc watched him from 2:00am-8:00am and then we both slept until 10:00am. We got up, ate breakfast, watched our church on TV and then Trayc said we needed groceries. He said, "Why don't you go get groceries and I'll stay here" so I took Tanner and we left at 2:15 pm. I spoke with Trayc several times while we were gone and every time asked (as always) if Tristan was okay and he said yes, he was fine. Trayc called me at 4:15 pm and asked if I was heading home and I told him I was checking out and he said, "okay I'll see you in a few minutes". At 4:20 pm while Trayc was changing Tayden's diaper the apnea monitor alarmed so Trayc left Tayden on the bed, checked Tristan and he was breathing again. He went back to Tayden's room to finish changing his diaper and the monitor alarmed again so he went in there and it was the heart monitor - THIS HAS NEVER, EVER HAPPENED!!!!! Trayc picked Tristan up and laid him on the bed and quickly undressed him to try and stimulate him and turned up the oxygen all the way to 5, but he was just very relaxed and the heart monitor continued alarming. Trayc called me and said "Where are you!" I said, "I'm on my way home" He said, "I need you to get home fast" I said, "Why?" He said, "He's not good baby, he's going fast!" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Baby just get home fast". I had been on the phone with my mom when he called so I clicked back to tell her and I was crying so hard. I didn't know how this was possible, I had just left at 2:15 pm, what could have changed in 2 hours? Of course, I hit every red light. My mom kept talking and praying with me all the way home (while at the same time getting my step-dad so they could come over). For 15 minutes Trayc held Tristan and kept telling him to hold on mommy was on her way. At 4:35 pm Tanner and I ran in the door, ran upstairs and Trayc handed him to me and said, "Baby tell him everything you want to, he's going fast". All 3 of us sat on the bed crying and I was looking in Tristan's eyes telling him how much I loved him, how happy I was to be his mommy, how I would never forget him, how all of his friends were waiting on him and I named them (Poppy Joy, Maddox and Mary Grace) and then Tanner said, "I love you buddy, you were the best little brother, I loved being your big brother, I will never forget you, I promise". I continued telling Tristan over and over how much I loved him until he took his last breath and went from my arms to Jesus arms at 4:40 pm. We sat on the bed for 20 minutes loving and kissing Tristan.

My parents were fixing to be here so as we started to walk downstairs I handed Tristan to Trayc and said, "I need to do a post and tell everyone so they can be praying for us". I sat down and through many tears quickly typed the entry called "Tristan went home to be with Jesus". Those were truly the hardest words I have ever typed as I am so used to typing cute little, creative titles - I just wanted to get the word out to the world that our little boy was gone and we desperately needed prayer! Within 15 minutes my parents, my sister's family and my grandparents were here (I'm so thankful we all live close). Then my sister took Tanner and Tayden so they could spend the night with her so they could be with their cousins and would not feel and see the pain we were experiencing, Tanner's been through so much since August and this part we wanted to shelter him from. Then our sweet pastor and his wife came and had prayer and talked with us all. He was reminding us that Tristan was in heaven from the moment he closed his eyes, he was in the presence of the Lord, that this body is what we hold on to and cling to because it's what we know and love but he's not there and then he shared some scripture. Being in church 3xs a week my entire life I've heard those words but NEVER needed to hear them like I did at that moment, it brought on a whole new meaning now that our little boy was in heaven. Everyone left but my parents, they stayed until the funeral home left.

It was around 11:00 pm when Trayc and I finally crawled into bed. We held on to Tristan's blue blanket and his little doggie (the one in all the pictures) and laid in each other's arms crying. It was so dark (we were used to the night stand light on) and it was so quite (Tanner and Tayden were with my sister and the oxygen concentrator wasn't on). Trayc got up and turned on the bathroom light and turned on the fan to the heater. We talked until 3:30 am about how in shock we were as there were no signs of this day coming, about our pregnancy, about the past 56 days, how we see clearly see the Lord's hand on our family since we began this T-18 journey in August and how we are so grateful to have been given more days than we ever imagined possible. We experienced 56 days of miracles!!!!!!!

I would ask that you please remember our family in prayer in the days ahead, they are extremely hard right now, although we knew Tristan's days were numbered from the beginning, I did not know it was possible to feel this great of a loss after sharing 56 days. We miss our little boy so much but fortunately we are not without hope, we know we will see him again.

John 11:4 says: "...This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby."