Homecoming

This post is a little late in coming but I think most of the people who read it see my posts on Facebook as well. Abigail came home a week ago on June 16th at 5 lbs 15.9 oz. She came home on oxygen and 2 monitors (heart/apnea monitor and an oximeter "oxygen saturation").  Here is how things went.

On Sunday, June 14 when Travis was at the hospital after church the nurse practitioner said that she could be going home on Monday or Tuesday. When I got there after trading places with Travis, they asked me what I thought. Since our home oxygen tanks were coming sometime on Monday afternoon, I said I would be more comfortable with Tuesday so that we could make sure everything was all in order.

Tuesday morning we geared up to bring Abigail home. We did a Bella Baby photoshoot in the morning at 10 AM. I'm so glad we did it because they turned out great. (Thank you to Heather Masa for the perfect going home outfit)

Joshua did so good taking pictures. He was so excited that Abigail was coming home.

This family of 4 is all together at last!

After taking her last bottle at the hospital and having our last meal in the hospital we were ready to go. We got out the door around 1 PM.

Sadly none of our primaries were working on Tuesday to send us home, but I was so thankful to have a nurse we knew!

Thank you to Gretchen and Robin for helping us get everything ready to go.

During Abigail's last days in the hospital she started to develop some reflux (not bad). Since she was coming home on moniters anyway it was okay to elevate her bed and use a "Tucker sling" to keep her from sliding and turning in her bed.

Abigail has a oximeter (pulse ox) monitor.
A heart rate/apnea monitor.
And oxygen

Things have gone well at home.  I was very worried about her gaining weight at home. The first 3 days she gained 4 oz

We had our first doctors appointment with our pediatrician who will follow her growth from here on out. We still have appointments with Mercy feeding (occupational therapy) and physical therapy. Then at 6 months adjusted age which is December 27 (appointment Jan 4) she will have her first Mercy NICU follow-up clinic where we will see one of the Mercy Neonatologist. 

Abigail is a miracle baby and we are so thankful to God for her continued growth. She is a 23 weeker who got to come home 2 weeks before her due date.  

Please continue to pray for our family for good health for all,  for continued growth, and adjustments to once again a new normal.

Next week

Well they are talking like Abigail might come home sometime late next week! 

Aaahhhhhhh

I hope we are ready!

She continues to take her whole bottle when she nipples her feed. So far she nipples every other feed. We are going to start to try to nipple 2 out of 3 feeds.

Most likely she will come home on oxygen. We don't know how long that could be. It is possible that she could all the sudden be ready to go without it, but it is also possible that once she starts taking all her feeds that she will need to go back up to .2 on her oxygen.

I asked Joshua what he thought about holding Abigail today and he said, "that be awesome." So he got to hold her with me after she finished her bottle.

Things are going to be so different when she comes home. Right now when we play pretend, Joshua says I'm the baby and he is either the Mommy or the nurse and he will get in his car then and says he has to go and leaves me, the baby, at the hospital. I'm not sure that he quite understands that she gets to come home and won't stay at the hospital forever.

Before hitting up the hospital today, we went to the Zoo to meet the new Polar Bear, Kali. And of course we couldn't miss the carousel or the train.

Such a big girl

Well feedings have gone pretty well. Abigail starting nippling some of her feedings starting on Thursday. As of Saturday she had nippled 8 feedings and took the whole bottle each time. On Sunday they changed her orders to nipple per cues, meaning that at the feeding time if she was awake and showed cues of wanting a bottle then she would get to take a bottle or try to breastfeed. At that point Abigail decided don't rush me and she only took parts of her next several bottles offered. Over night Monday she decided she was ready again and took 2 bottles in a row and took another one at 11:30 am Tuesday. It is still important to give her breaks and gavage (feeding tube) some of her feeds so that she doesn't use too much energy feeding.

Giving a preemie a bottle: To feed Abigail we hold her in front on her side for 2 reasons.

1. She can protect her airway better on her side because the milk isn't going straight into her mouth
2. Whoever is giving her the bottle can pace her a little by tipping the bottle so that the nipple is only half full. When she takes a break in sucking then we tip the bottle down so she doesn't get extra milk.

Abigail likes her her mobile. I like it because it has the black and white designs on the circles and on different parts of the animals. (So many in the store are for the look of the nursery instead of whats appropriate for a baby) It is fun to watch her eyes lock onto one of the parts as it moves around and then see her catch another one and watch it move.

They tried her on no oxygen yesterday but she didn't make it. She is on a low flow of .1 oxygen (I don't know exactly what it means, but I do know that it is just like a little whiff) She can even handle the prongs being out of her nose as long as they are near her nose but if you take them completely off, she desaturates.

4lbs 15.6 oz!

She looks like Joshua!

One of our primary nurses is head on vacation on Wednesday and will be gone the next weekend and won't be back until the Sunday after. We are hopeful that we will get to go home before then. We love April so much and are so thankful she was part of our team. Lately our primaries schedules have seemed to overlap so we haven't seen April as much in the last 2 weeks. Thank you to 2 of our other primaries for letting April work with Abigail on Sunday and Monday. God's Blessings to you April.