Yesterday morning, we received a great report from the nurses; that Adilyn had gone another night without any breathing spells (48 hours spell free)! They let us know that they needed to hear back from her 12 hour monitoring to make sure there wasn't anything irregular, but we could pretty much plan on going home! I think I was in shock when the nurse asked me if I felt comfortable taking her home that day or if I wanted to stay another night with Adi in our room in case anything came up - because I had been trying not to plan for the day we'd go home, but rather take it one day at a time. Our nurse for the bulk of the day was amazing - she let me know that she was anxiously awaiting the phone call from the test and eventually ended up calling them to see what the status was once 2:00pm passed. She said they almost always got a call back by that time - and fortunately, her call spurred on some action - as the guy that picked up the test apparently hadn't gotten it back to the center to be analyzed yet. Dan left work early and went home to do some last minute preparation at home - some dishes, light cleaning (since he'd been the only one here for the last 10 days), picked up some groceries and made a trip to get some preemie diapers. Once he got to the hospital, we just hung out in the Nursery with Adi - waiting for the call. It finally came at about 4:30pm - saying the test came back 'normal' and we were free to take Adilyn home with us! It was a pretty incredible feeling as we packed up the rest of our stuff and walked our little girl down to the exit, put her in the car and drove away at 5:40pm! I am so thankful for the experience we had over the past 10 days - even though they were some of the most difficult of my life. We have learned so much - from the nurses, from each other, from our friends and family and from the Lord - that He is in control and LOVES us.
Here's the little peanut in her car seat - she's so tiny that we have to support her with rolled up receiving blankets on either side of her body to make sure she stays upright.
FINALLY on our way home!
Once we got home, Dan and I did a LOT of laundry and unpacking -- we hadn't really prepared fully for her arrival, but we knew we had the basics. We settled in for our first night without the nurse's help!
When we first got home, she seemed to be on a 2 hour feeding schedule - which made me a little nervous. She had consistently been on a 4 hour schedule the last couple of days at the Hospital - but fortunately, she switched back to that late last night. I even had to wake her up for her 5:30am feeding this morning!
Dan was exhausted from his VERY busy week (work + everything else going on) - so he headed to bed around 10pm while I was still doing some of Adi's laundry. I contemplated putting her in her crib for the night, but wasn't sure I trusted the baby monitor and/or myself to hear her - so I ended up "sleeping" on the couch next to her in her bassinet. I am pretty confident that I spent most of the night staring at her, or putting my hand on her chest to make sure she was breathing - but it still felt great to wake up in our own home this morning - all together!
More to come - for now, we're just enjoying our little girl! Dan just gave her the grand tour. Cade (our dog) will come home tomorrow - so we'll see how that introduction goes!
Thank you all again for your support, love and encouragement through this process! We are SO grateful for our friends and family!
We definitely can't wait to show Adilyn off- but we also have to be careful with how many visitors we have and try to avoid any children (who may have germs to share with Adi) - since she is still pretty small, the Doctors advised us not to take her out for a while and to try to be aware of who is coming to visit. Please keep this in mind - but let us know if you'd like to come by at some point!
Grampa and gramma would like to come by for a short visit sometime!
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