She’s Home!

We passed last night’s test so Natalie came home today.  David and I ‘roomed in’ with Natalie at the hospital last night.  We had a room one nurse described to me as a ‘cheap Days Inn.’  Natalie was in her hospital crib hooked up the monitors and David and I had a queen bed next to her.  We got there a little after 8 once Zach and Julia were settled at Grandma and Grandpa’s.  We learned how to fortify my breast milk with 1/4 teaspoon of formula and how to mix the vitamins in once a day by syringe.  The nurse brought us her milk at 11, 2, 5 am etc. and we tried to sleep in between.  Natalie had a rough time settling down after her 11 o’clock feeding.  It felt like she was up until 1:30 or so.  David took over and ended up feeding her for the 2 am feeding so I could sleep.  I was so tired by then I didn’t get up to pump until the 5 am feeding.  While we went to breakfast, she got her hearing screening and did not pass.  She was able to hear loud noises but not quiet ones.  The audiologist said that extra fluid in the ears was common with Down’s babies and she suspected that was why Natalie couldn’t hear the softer sounds.  We’ll go back in a month to have her hearing screened again.  After going over the paper work and packing up Natalie’s gear from 24 days in the hospital, we set off for home.

She did great in her car seat.  No slumping at all.  I got her from her car seat into her bed without waking her up.  She slept while we unpacked everything.  We woke her up to eat just before Zach and Julia got home.  David was feeding her in her bedroom and I looked up to see Julia running up the driveway with a huge grin on her face.  She came in the door saying, “Where’s Natalie?”  I pointed to the room and followed her in with the camera.  She kept smiling at her in David’s lap.  Zach was a little behind her and seemed to like her too.  We got her wrapped up and brought her to the living room in her bouncee seat from them to see her better.  Zach and Julia started bringing her all her toys to show her.  They fought over who would get the pacifier and then had to be told that shoving it in her mouth was not the best way to go about it.  Julia kept touching Natalie’s hair and saying, “It’s so soft.”  Natalie must not have minded because she stayed awake for a longer time than normal.  When I thought she’d had enough loving, I put her to bed and she went to sleep without a wimper.

At her next feeding, I let Julia help hold the bottle.  She told me later that feeding Natalie was her favorite thing in the world, even better than Mac and Cheese.  Now, that is some serious favoritism!  We let Zach and Julia take turns holding Natalie on the couch.  Julia went first and unfortunately Natalie cried because she needed to burp.  It scared Julia a little so she gave up holding her quickly.  Zach went after we got the burp out and Natalie really was looking at him a lot, smiling some.  I still helped support Natalie’s head but he was almost able to hold her himself.  Julia tried again and did great.  The only difficulty was they started fighting over who could do what for Natalie and had some near collisions with her.  After her next feeding, I let them try talking to her in the bouncee seat.  I took the baby around the house and let the kids take turns explaining what eat room was and what we did in those rooms.  We were supposed to end in the bunk bed room for prayer time but they were still too excited by then for bed.  Natalie and I got on Julia’s bed to pray and in the midst of Zach and Julia jumping around, Natalie kept smiling and drifted off to sleep again.  I put her back in the crib and she went to sleep easily again. 

Back again after an hour or so.  Looks like Natalie’s having some gas pain or either cold in her room.  She woke up crying like she was in pain so I wrapped her up tighter put a hat on her head and rocked her until we both fell asleep.  She had some gas when I put her back to bed.  Hopefully it’s not the start of a rough night but just in case, I’m signing off for a short nap before our next feeding.

Amy