135 Days Later

Millie is HOME!

(for a video of our escape click here)

We will miss the NICU, but we are happy to be on our way.
(After 4 1/2 months of being there, we had accumulated a lot of stuff!)

Now that she's home, she sleeps and eats wonderfully.

She finally gets to enjoy her toys.
(Thank you Grammy and Gramps for the swing)

We love just laying around with this cutie!
This was her "Welcome home Dad" outfit.

The Story:

We've been waiting for Millie to eat 75% of her expected feeding amount consistently and gain weight. She started doing that on Tuesday last week, but our Pediatrician wasn't comfortable sending her home just yet. Truth be told, I wasn't comfortable yet either for some reason, so I'm thankful he was brave enough to say it. We spend the night with her (meaning she left her hospital room and stayed in a hotel type room with us) on Wednesday night. It was dreamy taking care of her all by ourselves! She even stepped up her eating quite a bit that night.

After a few visits from her Pediatrician on Thursday, and a little coaxing from me we got clearance to take her home that night! It happened very suddenly, but we are grateful we were able to take her home then. Buck went out of town for the weekend. If she was all ready to come home when he was gone I would have had to bring her home by myself and he would have missed what we've been looking forward to for 135 days!

We ended up leaving after it was dark, so that is why we don't have very many pictures. Leaving during the night shift in the NICU was great! We were loaded down with diapers, bottles, stickers for her oxygen, and anything else we could think of. We also had a little parade for Millie. We walked through the NICU saying goodbye to each of the nurses! Trust me, I've never seen that happen. Oh I love the night shift. I wish we could have said goodbye to every person that worked with us, but oh well. We were ready to break free!

We love having her home. Sometimes if feels like she's always been her with us, and sometimes it feels like I'm just babysitting. It's hard to explain.

So yes, Buck was out of town all weekend at an accounting competition in Arizona. That means I had a Mommy/Daughter weekend with Millie. I needed some time with just Millie to myself. It was wonderful! I would have gladly welcomed Buck on our weekend though :)

Millie is a wonderful baby. She cries, but it is still very soft. She sleeps most of the time. She slept through the night both Friday and Saturday night. I was so frazzled when I woke up to her crying on Saturday morning that I thought she was actually in the bed with me! I also couldn't figure out why the sun was shining! I was prepared to be up at 3 AM, so you can imagine my confusion. My first thought was, "Wow, I must have missed her crying all night. I'm glad she survived!"

Since Millie is on oxygen still we have a nice collection of oxygen tanks in our living room, an apnea monitor I have to tote all around the apartment, and an oxygen concentrator that makes noise equivalent to our dishwasher 24/7. Millie loves the noise. I never imagined it would be such an ordeal to pick her up and take her from the living room to our bedroom. Never mind taking her on a walk! Going for a walk definitely requires two people.

One last little story: We got home Thursday night around 9PM. Since we weren't planning on coming home that early, we hadn't ordered her oxygen for the house. This meant all we had were our tiny travel tanks that would get us through the night but needed to be changed every few hours. I was so worried about changing those and feeding her that it didn't dawn on me to change her diaper until 6:30 AM! Bless her heart! Don't worry, she survived just fine and now I make sure I change her diaper at least at every feeding.

Ahhh Motherhood. I love it. I'm not great at it, but I'm learning. Thankfully Millie doesn't seem to mind just yet.