A Mom's Life

I'm speechless. What a day today. It is so much fun having my baby JD home ~ we had such a fun night last night and fun day today. We did much of nothing but I watched him sleep a lot in between feedings and diapers; my heart has never been so full. Thank you to everyone for your wonderful messages. You all never cease to amaze me with your outpouring of love and support for our little family.

Both of the boys are doing great today. JD is happy as a clam and Cole had another good day today too. I still have a heavy heart since he's not here but I did get a chance to spend a couple of hours with him today and plan to go back tonight for his 8pm feeding. Daddy stopped on his way home too so he got lots of visiting time in.

We have our first pediatrician appt tomorrow for JD. They require the babies to be seen by their pediatrician within 48 hours of discharge. I can't wait to bundle him up and take him out again! He's sleeping soundly right next to me on his boppy lounger - what a great invention that thing is!



So, yesterday was a great day, once we got things rolling for discharge. It's an amazing production to get out of there. Aside from the fact that you have to be discharged at the nurse's convenience (much like any other hospital discharge), they had to prepare the medical records for us to take to the ped, re-teach us CPR, go over the medication schedule and dosages, finish his immunization record, make sure our car seat was "approved" etc. They really go the extra mile to make sure that parents are fully trained, informed and comfortable before taking their babies home. I think that is the consensus with the entire staff at AAMC - NICU or not. Once we got the go ahead to prepare to leave, we dressed our little guy in his going home outfit and started with our goodbyes. Many of the nurses came in to say goodbye to JD - he's considered one of the long termers so they all really were happy to see him be able to go home. It was a total fiasco wheeling out of there (car seat gets wheeled down in the baby bassinet). Poor JD was on overload with all of the nurses right in his face. It was really cute. We got home and I showed him around his new house while he slept.

Daddy did great with him while I visited Cole last night - that's what you get when Daddy is so involved in the care at the NICU. They know what they are doing when the babies come home - well, sorta. But it's a great arrangement for us in the evenings so that we both have some time to see Cole. Speaking of which, I just returned from hanging with Cole and he's doing really well tonight. We're still a week or two out from homecoming but every day is a milestone! Hoping for some more weight gain tonight - he's almost to FOUR pounds!

Here are a few more snaps of JD from today. We tried out all of the "baby goods" today. Some more fitting than others...

This is our "infant to toddler" highchair, without the tray of course. So apparently a preemie is far from an infant. He's swimming in it! Not for long, I'm sure...



Life is good!