<p>We're all HOME! Everything happened so quickly. Thank God for wonderful NICU nurses - they were our only advocates and really helped push us through the NICU since they saw she didn't really need to be there. On Tuesday we had the BEST nurse EVER. She went ahead and pushed to remove the CPAP and move her to a nose canula. They proceeded with caution. She did great. Later that evening I was visiting and she took her canula out as a 'trial'. About that same time, Avonlea ripped out her feeding tube. Our nurse said she was going to leave it out and see if they'd allow to try bottle feeding that evening. When they did rounds, she'd been on room air without issues for an hour so they removed the canula all together. I called later to check on her and she'd taken 1/2oz of breast milk from a bottle without issues! Around 1:30am I got up to pump and called the NICU to see how she was doing. I was told she'd taken 3 bottles without issues and that I could come up the next morning at 9 if I wanted to feed her (I was so excited I never asked if that was breast or bottle). I got there and was able to bottle feed her from her crib because she still had her central lines (2 IVs in her belly button). While I was feeding her, the doctor came in and checked her out. All of a sudden he said, "Move Avonlea to on demand feedings, as much as she can tolerate. Let's go ahead and get those lines out and move her out to room in." I really was thinking this would take a few days (we'd been through a 5-wk NICU stay with DS and everything was drug out). The nurse asked him if we could go ahead and start nursing. He agreed that was best. So, I was told to come back at noon to nurse her! Then the nurse tells me, "Ok, we'll need her carseat to do an hour-long carseat test to measure her oxygen levels - do you have your seat here?" Uh, no! They were planning to get her out of the NICU that day to room in at our hospital room. So, I rushed as fast as I could to get the seat and all my things to stay the night with my baby!
Everything went well so they brought her back to my room around 3pm. She did great but I cannot get over how OBNOXIOUS the nurse staff was! They came in every 3hrs to check on her, turning on all the overhead lights and taking about 30min for each check. Add that to the lab staff who came in to take blood and the breakfast cart and nursing sessions and I can say, we didn't get much sleep! But, we're home now! And she cluster fed for about 3hrs last night and then slept from 3:30am-9:15! </p>
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<p>Her brother and sister are SO excited to have her home. And we celebrated Christmas today because my parents are taking the older 2 to visit my grandparents and will be gone Christmas day - and we got to all be home together for Christmas!
We're so blessed! </p>
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<p>Thanks for all the warm wishes! ((HUGS))</p>
