Our NICU Story: Home

Lilly turned one week old on April 11th, and we celebrated with amazing news - Lilly was going to be discharged the next day.  The doctors had done some blood work that day and it looked great, so she just had to finish up her last antibiotic treatment on Friday around 2 in the morning, and we'd get to bring her home!  We were so excited!

I had been so bummed because I was really looking forward to having her pictures taken by Bella Baby, and thought that because she was in the NICU she wouldn't get the chance.  They came around on Thursday and asked if we were interested, and of course I said yes!  We set up the time for them to come by the next morning.

I could hardly sleep that night.  We were finally going to be home, all under one roof!  I couldn't wait.  I was a little upset because Mark had taken off work the entire week, assuming that we would be home with Lilly, but she spent it in the NICU instead.  I was really sad because he wouldn't get to spend that time with her.  I was a little nervous too, but my mom was going to come up the week Mark went back to work, then the next week my dad was going to come up for a few days as well.

So excited to bring our baby girl home!

The morning of April 12th, we woke up early, showered and got ready, and went to the hospital to bring our baby girl home.  We spent some time with our favorite nurse, going over all the discharge paperwork, the 'How to Care for Your Newborn' book they give all parents, and basically asking any last minute questions we could think of.  How do you heat up breast milk?!  How do we use a bulb syringe?!  You're really just going to send us home with her - no instruction manual?  And we have to keep her alive?  It was finally hitting me... holy shit.  We were responsible for this tiny human.

We tried taking some pictures with the Bella Baby people, but it was basically a shit show.  Lilly cried for almost all the pictures.  She was either wet, dirty, hungry, cold, or tired... or all of the above at once.  It was a disaster.  I think when I got the proofs, there were 11 total pictures.  I was upset, but I knew I'd rather have someone come to the house to take the pictures anyway.

All snuggled up ready to go home!

We started packing up all of Lilly's things.  It's amazing how much you can accumulate in 8 days!  After we got everything packed up, Mark went to get the car.  I asked Christa one last time for some help getting Lilly into her car seat (are you sure you want to send her home with me?) and before I knew it, we were wheeling her out of the hospital and putting her into the car.  I sat in the backseat and said a silent thank you that we'd had enough foresight to pick the house so close to the hospital.  I knew Mark would be driving about 5 MPH on the way home.

Cuddled in her swing

Lilly had fallen asleep on the very brief ride home, and we brought her in and immediately looked at each other and thought "WTF do we do now?!".  First on the agenda was to put our little angel in her swing.  Second was to get some food.  Mark ran to Five Guys because I now had the appetite of an NFL lineman - thanks breastfeeding!  When he got home, we sat together and ate our first meal as a family of three.  We spent the next 72 hours falling completely and totally in love with this wonderful tiny human.  It was amazing.