Thank You

Where do you begin with words, when words will never do justice to what you are feeling? I do not know if this will even begin to explain the range of emotions that Hannah and I have felt over the last 10 weeks. Or if it will even come close to letting you all know how thankful we are. Thank you for your comments on my writing. But, for once I am failing at writing what I want to say. That being said, here's a lot of things...

In case you may not know (or just want to re-live the excitement), January 23 was any normal day for us. I went to work. Hannah and I had planned to go to a Mars Hill basketball game that night, but we decided to stay home and ended up trying to nail down what we were going to do to his room. Around 5:30 a.m. on January 24, Hannah punched me and said, “Joel, I think my water has broken.” And of course, my bleary-eyed, half-awake answer was, “Are you sure?” So, we called the hospital and they said come to the ER. Well, to make a long story short, we: went to ECM, stayed for about 3 hours, put Hannah in an ambulance, I drove the longest drive ever to Huntsville, called all important people, spent the day in labor, and by 9:32 p.m. we had the new love of our life. We finally got rid of everyone but the grandparents, and Hannah and I finally ate supper together (cold/reheated McDonald’s and Burger King). We knew we had made it, but we weren’t sure what we were in for.

Since that night, our little baby boy has become one fat, big baby boy. We’ve gotten to know Huntsville better than we ever thought we would. We think we know enough to be practicing LPNs. And we have been truly reminded of just how blessed we are and how many people love us. We have tried to make a note of the gifts and cards and I know Hannah has already sent out several thank you cards. But, somehow none of that seems to do justice to the blessings we have received. Even if you get a card I still don’t think we could say thank you enough. We will spend every day of the rest of our lives reminding Clayton how many people were praying for him, pulling him through. It has been amazing.

I consider myself knowledgeable enough about technology to be dangerous. I can do more than the average person, but still manage to mess some things up. I wasn’t sure how I was going to start him his own webpage, but I finally put several ideas together and we came up with the blog. I put a counter on the right hand side because we were interested to see how many hits it would get in a day or over time. Now, any normal statistician would probably say the numbers are a little skewed based on the average number of times that one particular uncle checked it per day, but the counter was just one more way for us to see how many people were thinking of us.

We could not have been in a better place. Even though we don’t like Huntsville anymore (just kidding), we have been completely pleased with the hospital. Our nurses have been fabulous. They have been our family for two months. We have made many new friends and we were actually kind of sad to leave them. But we have many addresses and phone numbers with promises to update. I am working on a letter to send to the hospital thanking them and giving credit to the people who have helped us get to this point today.

We don’t know how to effectively express the way that we feel now that this is over. Your thoughts and prayers have pulled us through. It was heartbreaking to see so many families going through some of the same things we were without a support system. We have been so blessed to know so many people and have so many helping us out in anyway possible. Continue to pray for us. As has been said, we will not be up to any visitors for several weeks. But you better believe as soon as he is well, he will be making the rounds. I will for sure update with the any new dates on the Clayton Danley World Tour. We are so thankful for where we’ve been and where we are now. God has blessed us beyond compare. Kiss your kids. Tell your family you love them. And even when the car needs fixing or your boss is a pain or your frustrated with the people around you, remember: God is good and He is good to those who love Him. We are a blessed people and the trials of this life are but for a short time. We love you all deeply and your generous spirit will not be forgotten.

With all the love we can begin to give back,

Joel, Hannah, and Clayton (5 lbs 10 oz)

P.S. Oh yeah, we are home finally. We made it around noon on Wednesday. I didn't get the basketball goal up in time, but I did have the baseball and gloves ready (j/k). I will try to update this in the future, but I make no promises. Right now, we are all surviving. Life will never be the same, but what fun would that be? And, hey, that's the way we like it.

Picture Time

Man you guys are so demanding with this blog thing. You teach people a little about technology and they go crazy. Or maybe its the little kid that is making you all crazy??? Either way, I promise this is the last post before the final one. And everyone is pushing for a continuation of this after he gets home. Man. What do you guys want? A TV show? I'm thinking the "The Clayton Show" you know, kinda like the truman show. Anyway, Hannah wanted to say a few last words before we make it home so...enjoy.

P.S. This was when he was getting his picture made in the unit. If you want to see it, go to the Huntsville Hospital page and click on Babyface and then his birthdate (01.24.06) or you can find the grandparent/aunt/uncle/great-grandparent closest to you.

My Little Dream

I am finally going to be a “real” mommy! I could not be any more excited to get him home with Joel and me. Life has been anything but easy the past 2 months for us, but we have done remarkably well considering all that we have gone through. Clayton is simply beautiful and such a good little baby. He only cries when he is hungry and it is the sweetest little cry I have every heard (wonder how long I will be saying that). I got to rock him to sleep for the first time on Tuesday. My heart was so full it could have exploded. We have been getting his room ready for him and getting the house ready for us. Joel and I can not wait to be home again. There is nothing like your own bed and shower. We have come to appreciate so much these past months.
Joel and Clayton are my dreams come true. I have always wanted to be a wife and mother. Another one of my dreams was to be a famous singer, but I always said if that did not happen I would be completely satisfied singing my babies to sleep every night. I am now getting to sing Clayton to sleep and he loves it. To see him look at me and I know he knows that he is loved and safe in my arms. I am blessed beyond measure.
I could not thank all of you enough. You do not even know how much Joel and I depended on your messages. It was so wonderful to sit and read those every night. We know so many of you have prayed for our family. For that we are forever grateful. We have so many people who love and care about us and it has been overwhelming. I see parents of babies who never have one person come to visit. They are completely on their own. I don’t know how they do it. We have been truly blessed!!!!! Please continue to pray for us as we begin our life together at home with a baby! You may not see Clayton and me for a while. We are okay but he has to stay healthy. I am not going back to the hospital with him. I am going to be one over protective mom please be patient. You will all get to see him. I love each of you. You will never know how much you have meant to us.

Joel, Hannah, and Clayton (5 lbs 4.1 oz)

Almost There

Now that is a man who likes his bath. Last Thursday when Hannah got ready to give him a bath, his nurse told Hannah that she could put him actually in his tub to rinse him off. And he was so hungry that we had to give him his pacifier so he could suck on that. But he loved it.

I said I wasn't going to update again, but I wanted to let you know what our plans were (oh yeah, and we had one complaining uncle who wanted more pictures). But we talked to the doctor Tuesday and we decided to come home next Wednesday. He is going to have to come home on oxygen which is ok. We will just have to drag around a tank and a monitor for a few weeks. Have no fear, I'm sure Hannah will decorate it to match his clothes. That also means that we have to take an infant CPR class and room-in at the hospital before we take him home. So, we are going to do all of that Tuesday and be home for good on Wednesday. Hannah and I are going on one last farewell tour (Florence-Wed, H'ville-Thurs, Dunlap-Fri, Florence-Sat, and H'Ville-Sun-Wed) to make sure we are ready for him.

We know you all are excited to see him, but he won't really be up to visitors for several weeks. Trust us, as soon as he is well, he will be making the rounds to visit. But, for a couple of months he and Hannah will get to be hermits. We hope that you will understand because he is still little and very sensitive to sickness especially from visitors. We do have an appointment with the federal government to come and de-germ our house. Just kidding. Thank you again for your prayers and good thoughts. We are a little nervous, but really, really, really excited about getting him home. We will see you soon.

Flo-town bound,
Joel, Hannah, and Clayton (4 lbs and 13 oz)

P.S. Don't forget to check back next week for one final post.