Home Sweet Home

Well, if the title didn't give it away, Zoey is FINALLY home!!!  As of May 9th at 3:04pm, we were loading Zoey into our vehicle in Rochester and departing for home with her.  My sincerest apologies for not getting an update done yesterday, but as you can imagine, life was very busy getting her home and settled and it is very different having her here and being up feeding her around the clock every 2-3 hours. 


In the beginning

In the end

Things kind of fell into place very quickly with taking her home.  This past weekend, some conversations started about us going home sooner than my birthday which was the most recent goal for departure.  Then Monday morning in rounds, the Neonatologist and Fellow basically helped figure out what needed to be done before we left for home and gave specific people to-do lists to make sure certain things were being taken care of sooner than later in case there were any glitches so as not to delay our departure.  Originally they had said by the end of the week we could probably leave, then on Tuesday they said we should "room-in" on Wednesday night.  This meant that we rolled her into a private room with no nurses or anyone and tried to do everything on our own with her.  Zoey decided she wanted to start celebrating early and was up from 11p-2a and would not fall asleep.  I checked everything I could think of to make sure there was nothing else wrong other than wanting attention or just that her sleep schedule was off but I really think that's all it ended up being as she did the same thing the next night.  Despite her not sleeping and keeping us up most of the night, we felt like things went well and we were able to handle feedings, meds, diaper changes, etc.  They checked in with us Thursday morning to find out how we felt and said if we thought we were ready then we could leave Thursday otherwise we could room-in one more night for more comfort and confidence if we wanted.  Since we felt things went well enough, we decided to tie up the rest of the loose ends and left.

With taking her home, we also said goodbye to the Ronald McDonald House in Rochester and moved out.  It was bittersweet since we've gotten to know some of the staff there and they were sad to see us go but obviously really excited for us too and couldn't have been happier we were able to leave.  I packed everything up and brought a vehicle full home on Wednesday evening, picked up Ray, and headed back so we only had one vehicle in Rochester when it was time to leave.

Many of the nurses who have worked with Zoey at some time during her stay were coming around to say goodbye throughout the week.  Also, nurses were coming around to see us and wish us luck and assure us that we'd do just fine at home and were ready after everything we've been through.  Many of them said "You've been here long enough...now it's time to go home and enjoy being parents."  We were also encouraged to come back to their yearly reunion gathering they have every August that NICU families are invited back to for 5 years so they can see the kiddos and how they've grown.  We assured them that we'd make it back for that.  While we butted heads with people and didn't always see eye to eye on things, it was very evident that they all really cared about Zoey and us and were sad we'd be gone but thrilled we finally got to leave with her.  While I was excited to leave, this too was bittersweet for me since it's been a big part of our lives for the past 4 months.  We want to thank all of the NICU staff who we worked with as we couldn't have done it without you!  And thank you for putting up with us as you knew our frustration was only because we wanted what's best for Zoey.

In the past 24 hours, we've already started to form a bit of a schedule but I try not to think of what it will be like when I have to go back to work.  Hopefully we've transitioned to all oral feeds and no G-tube feeds, and have been able to introduce bottles by then as it should help.  We can't wait for so many of you to finally be able to meet her.  The Drs said that we still have to be careful with people touching her a lot as she will still be very susceptible of getting sick more easily so please don't be offended if we're still protective of her and hand you a bottle of hand sanitizer.  While I hoped Jan 9 through May 9 would go by very quickly, I now hope time slows down especially over the coming weeks that I'm off work with her and of course the many years to come.

We want to thank everyone for their continued love and support through all of this.  The blog updates will continue but with much less frequency and probably only after we have follow up appointments or when there's something big to update you on.  We hope the rest of her life is much easier now and pray for continued improved health! Thank you to everyone and we're so excited to be living a "normal" life now with our precious little girl!