Jase Day!

Today is Jase Day!  Its the day we took him home.  A bittersweet day that was one of my hardest as a woman and a mother.  I was thrilled to finally be getting one of my "layaway" babies home, but devastated to leave Evan behind.  Before this day I knew they at least had each other.  Though very rarely together and not in the same bed, they still had each other.  How does a mother go through this?  How does one leave a child in a hospital bed without his brother by his side?  How am I supposed to be strong for both of my children when one is safely in our home and one is safely in his NICU pod?  
I think you just do.  You have to!  You have no choice and that is the hardest part.  Now I guess I was smart to take pictures of them while in NICU by the lovely Bella Photographers, prompting the NICU staff to take out Evan's feeding tube, which he took out several times a day anyway, and to my happy surprise he did very well and we only had 2 days of the back and forth, but it was still a hard day.
As I come up on this year marker, I find myself getting emotional.  Remembering that Jase spent 38 days without me sleeping with him and without me to comfort him every time he needed comfort.  I love this journey and it is OUR journey, but it was a struggle to find the inner comfort to go on.On top of that I was still dealing with the meds from "lingering effects of preeclampsia" and the day I went to see Evan who was alone in that NICU I got very sick.  Sick to the point where my lovely lactation lady, who was there to finish my lesson on infant massage, had to bring me my stuff out to the family room, in case it was something more than my meds making me ill.
I went home more devastated that I could make babies beyond my own ill.  Sick babies that needed no more germs or complications to fight their tiny little selves.  But I went home.  I held onto Jase and wheeled him into my room, Matt had put him in the carseat and a snap and go and we were totally wheeling him around the house, and we slept.  In the comfort of our home we slept.  We got up to pump and feed and tried to find comfort in knowing that soon we would emerge as a family.  
Today we celebrate Jase and Jase day!  Happy Homecoming sweet boy.  Happy day that is your own and one of the only ones that will be his and his alone.  I celebrate the littlest fighter that he is.  The scrapper who emerged before his brother and shocked us by figuring it out first.  We are going to take a day to celebrate only him today.  To give him a day.  As a twin this is HIS day and we cherish his homecoming.