Coming Home

Clearly, I haven't written in a while, but I literally have a page long list of things I am planning to write about. Not that I think anyone really cares at this point, but I do want to remember this experience and be able to share it with Quinn - so may as well!

My last post was the same week Quinn was discharged. It happened so fast. The main things babies have to do to leave the NICU are have no events for 7 days (Quinn was good in this area), and take all feeds orally (no goiing home with the feeding tune). The nurses kept saying that babies learn to eat and one day a switch just flips...I didn't really believe them, but they were right!

On Wednesday July 10th her feeding tube was scheduled to be changed. Quinn had been doing so well with breast and bottle feeding that instead of putting a new tube in, they left it out. The doctor said we would see how she did...and she did just fine. She needed to take at least 80% of her feed each time, and she did this! They told me to bring her car seat in for the "carseat challenge." This was so exciting and such a whirlwind! I had really tried to focus on the NICU one day at a time. I didn't want to get wrapped up in thinking about when she would come home - so it crept up on us! The nurse started doing tons of discharge teaching with me that day, and a huge carseat debacle was about to ensue :)

Carseats
Quinn weighed under five pounds - so we needed a car seat that would fit her - OBVIOUSLY. The infant seat that we had from Harper was still good, but it had a five pound minimum - becasue I NEVER thought I would bring a baby smaller than five pounds home from the hospital! Again - this whole experience has taught me SO much! So, no problem, we decided to buy another one.

We got the Chicco Keyfit 30 - which is on the recommended list for small birth weight babies. And - because I am a ridiculous girly shopper, I wanted the purple one - which Babies R Us ONLY carries with the travel system...oh I am good at wasting money. We got it - a new stroller and everything. But it was SO cute! We got it, the car seat tech came to the hospital installed it and checked Quinn in it. It all looked good. Now, for the carseat challenge. She had to sit in it for one hour and keep her oxygen saturation levels above 90. Look how tiny she looks in this!

Well - she didn't pass the carseat challenge. Remember that she has had only one event on June 15th...apparantly while in this seat her SO2 dipped to 88....needs to be above 90. The nurse didn't think the seat fit her right...which was frustrating because the carseat tech thought it fit her great! So...no problem - we decided to get a different one!!

Back to Babies R Us - this time the Britax B safe....here she is in this one:

Seems about the same to me....and she still didn't pass. Well, not to worry - this was on Thursday July 11th - we were determined to get home the next day.

Friday morning when we arrived at the hospital, we were thrilled that our FAVORITE NICU nurse, Pam, was working. This picture was taken a few days earlier.

And, when we arrived that morning we saw this!!

She already had Quinn in the B-safe car seat - she had readjusted the straps and said that she had never seen a baby fail the car seat test in these seats...and she passed with flying colors....since she passed in the B-safe seat we took the CUTE purple Chicco one back...oh well - I really am over it:) And really, we didn't need another stroller.

Pam turned the monitor off. It was crazy - for four weeks I had looked up to that monitor constantly - even though the nurses tell you to look at the baby. But when they were switched off - we knew it was for real!

We got to pack up all of our stuff - you would be surprised how much you can fit in a NICU bed space...

Here are Quinn and I getting ready to go!

Lots of smiles and tears when you leave the NICU. What a sense of relief, yet there is so much apprehension and anxiety about the unknown. Having a preemie is a game changer. Everything you had planned goes out the window. But for today - we were just happy.