Home!

After 4 nights in the hospital (boy, it felt longer than that!) Evan and I were discharged home. I believe they would have discharged me after 2 nights but kept me a third medically and a fourth on boarder status, meaning I could stay but they no longer feed or medicate me. On Friday, before I was discharged and moved into the boarder room, the doctor recommended I could room in with Evan Saturday night with the plan being that if it went well, I could take him home Sunday, a trial run if you will, to see if I could get him to eat adequately.  The discharge planner then asked if I wanted to do it Friday night since the room was available both nights and the doctor okayed Friday night. The plan was to do both nights, but I had a sliver of hope about going home if night 1 was successful. Since the nurse who weighed Evan Thursday evening said he'd lost a little more weight, down to 6 lbs 1 oz, I was not too hopeful, and all the nurses kept saying 2 nights. Honestly, on Friday I was nervous about it because Thursday night I had a hard time getting him to stay awake to eat as much as we would have liked. I was having trouble with both breast feeding and bottle feeding the expressed breast milk and the night nurse had to help me get him to eat more. As soon as we decided to do the border room, hours before it even happened, he suddenly started eating much better and gave me some hope of this going okay.

The boarder room is like a weird little motel room in the NICU, complete with bed, tv, and shower but no fridge or microwave.  Nurses check on baby once a shift and are right across the hall if you need them.  I won't pretend I got a ton of sleep Friday night in the boarder room but we survived the night, his bilirubin levels were okay, and the neonatologist assessed in the morning and said we could go home!

Evan has gotten much better at nursing and he has not lost any more weight since coming home. We are all adjusting to the change in our lives. His sister in particular is very excited to have him home but adjusting to what we can and cannot do with a baby.

I'm very glad I delivered in a hospital with all of the necessary medical technology to quickly stabilize Evan's breathing and provide care for him in the days after his birth. The Kaiser Roseville women's and children's center took wonderful care of him and me and I appreciate the options like boarding and rooming in that let parents have more time with a hospitalized infant.  Having the kind of breathing problems he had could have led to brain damage or worse if not treated promptly.  I had some really wonderful nurses who helped me through a difficult time and my recovery from surgery has been smoother than expected.  I wish it were possible to have even more time with the baby initially, when I was still receiving care, perhaps a unit where mothers and babies could receive nursing care together so that mom doesn't have to wait to get into a wheelchair to see baby, can breastfeed on demand where possible, and doesn't have to guess when it's time to ride the elevator up 2 floors to see her own doctors, take meds, etc.  However, we received excellent care promptly and were able to go home as soon as it was safe for us to do so. So glad to be home! 

Evan checked out fine at his follow up pedi visit and now we can get on with adjusting to having a new baby at home.