Our Story
Rooming-In:  10/01/04 - 10/02/04
 

Day 74 -- 10/01/04

8:00 PM:  Got to the hospital around 7:45, and started getting things settled.  Our room was just outside the nursery, so if we needed anything, they were right there.  Basically the way rooming in works is that the parents come and stay at the hospital in a private room with the baby.  During the time they are there, they assume full responsibility for caring for the baby -- feeding, medication, etc.  Once the nurse got him down to the room, and we got everything all set up, we got left on our own.  Josh did well...mostly slept.  We had him hooked to the monitor he'll be using at home, so there were no screens to show us his heart rate or respiration rate -- the only way we'd know anything is if his heart rate went above 200, below 80, or if he quit breathing for more than 20 seconds.  They'd also removed his pulse oximeter, so we didn't have a machine constantly telling us how saturated his blood was with oxygen (and consequently, we didn't have something beeping at us all the time...it was kind of nice!).

It was a pretty quiet night -- Chris slept pretty well (he'd only had 2 hours sleep because he worked Thursday night and then ran errands all day Friday to get ready for Little Man's homecoming).  I actually slept fairly well (when I slept).  We took care of Josh at his regular care times (8:30 PM, 11:30 PM, then every 3 hours from there)...he slept pretty well in between care times, and without monitors going off all the time, it was pretty quiet.  I slept better than I expected in between care times -- I guess because I knew that his monitor would definitely wake me up if anything happened, and that the hospital staff was just down the hall if I needed them.

Josh took 70 ml of milk at his 11:30 feed -- little piggy!  We weighed him right after that, and I think because of all the milk, plus the big band they had on his ankle (it was like those things they have on clothes at the stores to keep you from stealing them...if anyone moved him beyond a certain point, or if they cut the band without deactivating it with the official computer first, then the whole floor would lock down...all doors would lock, the elevators wouldn't work, basically, no one would go anywhere) he weighed a lot more than we expected.  He weighed 6 pounds, 13.8 ounces!

Day 75 -- 10/02/04

We got up to take care of Josh at 5:30, then napped again till his 8:30 care time.  I got up to feed and care for him at 2:30, and he wouldn't budge...I think he filled his belly at his 11:30 feed, and was sleepy, so he decided that he didn't need to get up at 2:30 for care.  Hopefully, he'll stay in that habit once he gets home!  The nurse came in around 6:00 to check his vitals and make sure that everything was going OK.  The new nurse came on at 7:00, and stopped by our room to check on things around 8:00.  We pretty much just hung out most of the day...watched the VT football game while we waited on Dr. Allen to come by and see if he thought we were ready to go home.  Took care of Josh throughout the day -- it's a pretty easy routine, just getting all his medications straight at the right time is the hard part.  Met with one of the nurses who is also a lactation consultant, and she made sure that I was doing things right with nursing Josh -- she said that I'm doing everything right, it's just going to take some time and practice to get him nursing productively...he's just not had to work for his food for so long, he's lazy, and being a preemie, he can't suck quite as strongly as he needs to in order to get what he wants.  I'm trying to be patient and not take it personally...the way I figure it, once we get him home, I'll have all the time I need to let him practice and get better at it.

Dr. Allen finally came by around 3:00, and we talked with him for awhile.  Went over all the details of Josh's care, and made sure that we were comfortable with it all.  He didn't see any reason for us to have to stick around another night, so he went ahead and signed all the paperwork to get Josh discharged.  While everything was being taken care of, we took Josh down to the nursery and did his hospital picture (the "generic" picture they do at the hospital that you can then personalize with birth date, weight, time, etc. to send out to people).  We also loaded up on supplies, and made sure that we had all his stuff from his bedside.  Packed up the car, and once all the details were in place, we snuggled him into his car seat (he looks so tiny in it!), and took him down to the car.

Wow...what a feeling.  I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.  It was such an emotional time for me...the past 74 days have been both the longest and the shortest of my life.  I've been through more emotions than I knew existed, and all over this little tiny thing that doesn't even weigh 7 pounds.  I can't even begin to describe the emotions I felt on the ride home...relief, exhaustion, fear, joy, love, ... just to name a few.  Even though he's coming home on oxygen and a monitor, he's coming HOME!

It's so hard to believe that he's ours -- I think that to some extent, I never really felt like I was pregnant...I only really "showed" for a couple of weeks, and there were people who never knew I was pregnant until I told them that I'd had him (way early).  Then, having him spend so long in the NICU, I was somewhat removed from the whole thing -- even though I was there every day, and I took care of him when I could, and I fought and raised hell when I thought things weren't being done right, to some extent, it felt like he wasn't completely ours.  It's just such a relief to be able to finally bring him home and start this chapter of our lives, and we're so thankful that he is such a strong little fighter.  It's going to be a long road ahead, but I'm looking forward to it.

Back to NICU Page