Rooming In.. #8

Today is Sunday the 16th. Isaac was still tolerating all his feeds and pooping! (HD parents get overly excited about poop) We found out that we would be rooming in tonight. We were given the same room they had given us on the 2nd night Isaac was in the NICU. This time we were a lot happier to be moving back to that room! :) The Tree House had been very comfortable.. In case you were wondering what the tree house is, here's the link for more info : http://www.multicare.org/home/tree-house-place-2 , but we were ready to go back to that cracker jack box of a room and spend the night with our baby! Today he would be removed from ALL the machines.. No more of anything! All his vitals had been stable throughout his stay. He got a 9 out of 9 on his APGAR at birth and never had any issues in the NICU. He was being transferred to the intermediate care nursery which was on the postpartum floor. Back to the floor where we had started! They said we would probably get to go home in 2 days. I couldn't believe how everything had been so wonderful, gotten so bad, then had gotten so good again in a matter of 10 days. It seemed like 10 years...

I was taking down all of Isaac's things from his bedside in the NICU. I was packing up all of our stuff.. His boppy, our blankets, his clothes, he was actually wearing clothes and not just a diaper at this point! I began to look around and see all the other babies. It made me sad because they weren't as lucky as Isaac. They weren't going home today. Some of those babies had been there for weeks or months. And some had a long way to go before they were in our shoes. I realized then how lucky and BLESSED we were. This was definitely a hard situation, stressful, but not compared to what some of these families are going through. I always saw new faces in there. I would see the doctors talking to the parents and then the parents breaking down and crying. I remembered how that felt. You can't understand someone's pain like that, unless you've been through it.

Most of the babies in there were premature. Isaac was the biggest one in there. We were always asked by other parents how early he was.. And we would laugh.. Not early.. 2 WEEKS LATE! He was the only one like that in there. Him being 2 weeks over due gave him that much more of an advantage to fighting this.. I truly believed the saying "They will come when they are ready" to be absolutely true. He needed that extra time. He gained more strength and more weight in those 2 weeks. He needed that for his fight. Those extra 2 weeks of misery for me gave him the strength he needed. He knew what he was doing.

After I had all his stuff packed away, we waited for him to be transferred up. I couldn't believe the day was here.. We were getting closer to that hospital exit. :)

That evening we spent in the room as a family. We took so many pictures and barely even slept. We cried a lot. Happy tears this time. We ordered food in and just enjoyed our new family. This is what most people get to experience from the beginning. We just had to wait a little longer, but it was worth it. Isaac was just happy he could eat.. He had such a big appetite! I was starting to get nervous about bringing him home. Excited but nervous. Of course we had asked about long term issues with HD and how our life would be. For the most part HD kids live normal lives. Our surgeon told us that we would be seeing a lot of her, she wasn't lying :). We were just thankful this was something that could be managed and for the most part we can get on like any other normal family would.

Later in the evening we got word that we would be discharged tomorrow if tonight went well. HOME?! Really? HOME?! Finally!! We had finally made it to the end of this journey.. We hoped that tomorrow would be the day we got to take our baby home.. After waiting a month for him to come home. 2 weeks of being overdue and almost 2 weeks in the NICU. We were so ready!