Since Weeman looked like he had a mop on his head, Neely and I decided that this past Thursday we would all go get our hair cut. The lady we go to was nice enough to come in early so that we would be able to go visit Slurpee after we were done. We decided, however, to go after dinner that evening. By the time we were all done getting our hair did I was in quite a bit of pain and needed to go home and take some meds. I asked Neely to call the NICU and check on Slurpee since we hadn’t checked on her in about 24 hours. He talked to the nurse for a few minutes and when he got off the phone he said they wanted to know if we were ready to bring her home Friday.
OMG!!!!!! We were not ready. The car seat was still in the box. We didn’t have any formula and didn’t know what kind to buy. I started to wonder what I was going to do with a baby at home. We started scurrying around. We got the seat put in the car. Luckily I had cleaned her room a little that morning. While we were running around one of the Nurse Practicitioners called and asked if we would like to room-in. They wanted us to come and stay at the hospital so we could take care of her overnight and the nurses would be there if we had any questions or needed help. We both thought we would be okay. Since we were declining the room-in she said she would like for us to feed her twice that day and twice the next day so they would know we knew what we were doing.
In the midst of all of this, Neely decided that we shouldn’t bring her home until Saturday. We still needed to get formula and find out what kind we were supposed to have and he and Weeman had plans to go to the baseball game and he didn’t want to leave me at home alone with Slurpee. We went to the hospital Thursday night and fed her once. The nurse seemed pleased with that so we started the discharge paperwork and left the car seat so she could do the car seat test.
We went in early Friday morning and Dr. C was rounding on Slurpee. She asked if we were ready to take her home and Neely said we would prefer to wait one more day. She said she was worried the insurance would not pay for the extra, but she checked with the insurance lady and she said she should be able to get one more day. We got more information on what we needed in the way of formula and some other things that we needed and after feeding her once we were off to search for what we needed.
It took three stores but we finally found the formula. Neely and Weeman were able to go to the baseball game without worrying about Slurpee and me.
Saturday morning we picked up Gran and headed to the hospital. When we got there the nurse went and got the neonate on-call. He talked to us about what we were going to need to do now that she was going home. They are concerned that she has low muscle tone and want us to see a neurologist. They also wanted to be sure we saw the pediatrician no later than Wednesday of this week. Other than that we were ready to go. We just had to wait on the discharge summary. That took 2 hours for them to do. I thought I was going to bust before we could get out of there.
Weeman met her for the first time as we left the hospital. He was very enamored with her. He was surprised at how many faces she made and how small her hands were. When we got home he sat on the couch and held her. It was very sweet to see how much love he already had for his sister.
We are still fighting we the feeding problems that she had in the NICU. She sleeps during the day and likes to keeps us awake at night. I hope I can get her switched soon. Neely went back to work this week and is trying to get caught up after being gone for three weeks. He says they are being very accommodating and letting him leave early and take care of whatever he needs to while he’s at work.
She is home now.
