Gestational Age: 38 weeks
It's been awhile since I've updated!
We got to bring our precious baby home on Tuesday November 22nd. We didn't expect her to come home until at least December, so it was quite a shock to me when I walked into the NICU on the 21st for my normal 11am visit, when the doctor asked if I was ready to take her home. Since she was still having a few apnea and low heart rate issues, they wanted us to room-in with her that night just to see how she would do without a bunch of nurses stepping in all night long.
That afternoon, we met with a man from a company who provides apnea monitors to give us a run-down of what we would have to bring home with us. Rylee needed to be on a monitor because she was still having a few episodes here and there. We got our lesson and went home to take care of the dogs.
Monday night, we grabbed a few things, and went back to the hospital and were escorted to a hospital room with a bed and a couch. Rylee's nurse brought her into the room in her crib, hooked her up to the hospital monitors and the monitor we were given to take home, and left us to our own devices. We were to feed her on our own, change her and basically pretend like we were home.
The hospital monitor was being a piece of junk, and the nurse was having a hard time getting it to pick up her O2 stats, so she was coming in and out of the room rather frequently to make sure everything was ok. Around 10pm, she came in to do a check, and took Rylee's temperature. It was very low. She said if her temp didn't go back up after wrapping her in a couple more blankets, that she would have to go back to the NICU and wouldn't be going home.
Around 1am, she came back in to take Rylee's temperature again and it still wasn't up to snuff. She apologized and wheeled Rylee back into the NICU to get her warmed up. We packed up our stuff and went home.
I went back to the hospital on Tuesday at 11am thinking she wouldn't be coming home for awhile.... The doctor came in to do her normal update, and told me she thought Rylee would be fine to come home! We would just need to keep her extra warm and monitor her temperature for a couple of days. I excitedly called Zac and told him to come home early. Our baby was coming home!!!! I visited with her for awhile, then went home to prepare.
We went back to the hospital again in the early afternoon to do the car seat test and talk to the nurses about her discharge instructions. The test went great! She looked SOOOO tiny in the huge carseat.It swallowed her up!
After the car seat test, we got her discharge summary, and were able to go! It was amazing to be taking her home so soon!!! I was so worried! She was so tiny and fragile.
Bringing her home was great. She was super quiet, slept a lot and just wanted to cuddle. Oh how I want that night back! I need more cuddles.
And sleep. ;)
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