Earlier in the day we'd been in for his car seat test. He had to sit in his car seat for an hour without any breathing or heart rate issues. His monitors had been having trouble keeping a signal and his nurse refused to change them before the test began. We thought for sure he'd fail because of it. Thankfully, even with the problem he passed and we were allowed to begin our sleep in. Still his monitors were being an issue and causing problems. They would start beeping every few minutes even though there was nothing wrong with him, they just weren't keeping a strong signal. We couldn't figure out how to silence them and the nurses were convinced there was nothing wrong. We didn't sleep.
Finally about 4am a new nurse came in and agreed there was something wrong with the monitors and changed them. Sweet relief! No constant beeping and having to attempt to adjust them or fail to sleep through them. Caiden was still doing great!
A few hours later his nurse came in, weighed him and took his temperature. He'd put on .7oz in the past day. He passed! We were going to be able to take him home, we just had to wait on his doctor to make rounds and discharge him. Roughly noon we were packed up and walking to the car and this time Caiden was coming home with us! 25 days in the NICU was more than enough!
The first few days home went great but its a hard adjustment going from changing his diaper and feeding him twice a day to round the clock care. It was still wonderful having him home and being able to hold him whenever without having to worry about pulling on wires or someone snapping at us. Every little thing he did we snapped a picture of.
Some nights I just want to bash my head into the wall when I cant figure out what it is he needs or he won't latch to be fed when I know he's hungry. But after I get him to calm down and wake up in the morning and see his chubby little face, I know how worth the frustration he is. I could have lost him. The traumatic experience we all went through in getting him here safely was well worth it. I'm grateful for every smelly diaper because I know that had things gone differently, we wouldn't have any to change right now.
Tomorrow he turns a month old. Its amazing to see how much he's changed. I can see his progress every day. There's still four weeks until his due date and considering everything went smoothly, I'm honestly glad I've got him home now. Knowing him now and seeing his personality develop as much as it has already, I couldn't stand to have had to wait another whole month to have my baby.
He may drive me nuts sometimes and I might want to give up on occasion and just walk away, but I think that's something every parent has to overcome. And in the end we'll make it and twenty or thirty some odd years from now, I hope he'll be happy and taking home a baby of his own.
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