Elsie comes home!

One down, two to go! After 132 days in the NICU Elsie packed up her things and headed home!

Here are some pics and videos...

Elsie had her first visitor, her cousin Lana!

and Grammie brought her a balloon and a beautiful rose bush!

Here is our drive home

Rosamaria surprised us by waiting in the driveway to video our homecoming!  What a great idea!  

Thank you to everyone...it is so great to be home!  2 more to go!

Standing still

It feels like time is standing still here in the NICU. Every few days one baby has a spell, and resets the clock back to zero. As of today Sammy is on day 1, Elsie is on day 3, and Danny is on day 0.

Elsie was almost a go on Monday,  she made it to day 5 and then tanked at the eleventh hour. It happens.  She did do her car seat challenge and passed so we got that out of the way.  They make the babies sit in their car seats for 90 min to see if they spell.  If they do they can't ride in the car alone, they would need an adult in the back seat with them. Glad she passed. 

Discouraging as it is that we are not home yet, there's much to be thankful for.  I look around the NICU and see lots of sick babies, some with minor issues and some with permanent disabilities.  So I try not to lose perspective that our babies have simple issues that they will eventually grow out of. We just need to be patient.

I'm not counting my chickens but Elsie is slotted to come home Saturday.  They delivered her monitor today and showed me how to use it.  It's pretty straightforward,  an air horn alarm goes off when she drops her heart rate or stops breathing and I run and save the baby.  Sounds simple enough. The good news is they say babies thrive once home so I'm hoping she'll grow out of this quickly and we can ditch the monitor.  

Here are some pics. ..

Elsie and all her funny faces

Sammy

Danny

Same bat time same bat channel

All of the babies have been back and forth on spell watches. Sammy has made it to day 2, 4, and 3, and is currently on day 1. Danny has made it to day 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, and is currently on day 0 .  Elsie has made it to day 3, 4, 1, and is currently on day 3.

Even though it seems like they are all over the place with the spell watches, I think we may have turned a corner. Danny and Elsie are doing well on their reflux meds and have now added rice to their breast milk. This has definitely helped with the amount of spitting the two of them were doing, and most of their spells happened during spits. Most of Sammy's spells revolves around bearing down and pooping, so a daily dose of prune juice has helped him out , and we are seeing good results the last two days.

There was talk this week about letting the babies come home on monitors. I remain hopeful that this will not be the case, since we are told that they are very sensitive and go off frequently and unnecessarily. 

The way I look at it is to have perspective that we are only at 42 weeks gestational age, and we have come a long way to get here. All of the babies are of feeding tubes, they don't require any oxygen, all the surgeries are done, life is good even if we are still in the NICU. A week or two in the grand scheme of things is nothing to fret over. Before you know it all three babies will be home and our house will be busy and chaotic. 

So here's to keeping our fingers crossed that our babies will be home soon :-)

Elsie

Danny

Elsie

Sammy

Sammy

Sammy

Elsie

Sammy

Elsie bath time

Sammy

Danny

Elsie snuggling Mommy

Elsie the thinker

Sammy

Sammy

Here are some videos from the past week...

Elsie loving her mobile

Sammy hanging in his bouncy chair

Danny chilling in his crib