At 9:16 am I got a call from Heather (one of our favorites in the NICU) that I could come and get my girls. Oh my gosh! I can't even explain how I felt. 82 days after they were born and 110 days after I was admitted to hospital and I was finally going to be a full time mother. I don't know how to explain it but through all of this part of me never felt like a mother, like I didn't have kids still. I knew in my head they were mine but my life had barely changed other than the daily visits to the hospital. So I met up with my mom and we were off. It was time for their lunch cares when we got there (had to wait on the oxygen company to bring correct equipment) so I was feeding Olivia when she decided to initiate me to motherhood by covering me from neck to knees in throw up. There is nothing like the smell of formula. She soaked me down to my underclothes. Luckily the staff liked me (or felt sorry for me) and they gave me a set of scrubs to wear. I looked at it like I had been there often enough I could have been an employee. I mean security was giving me parking tickets for not having my employee permit properly displayed and using the visitor lot. So we had a prayer with the chaplain Claire and Dr. Moraille came in to say goodbye, he is the neonatalogist that had visited me while on bedrest. We got the girls all packed up and I sent Mom to bring the car around while I said goodbye to the nurses who took care of me. Well after 20 mins or so she is still not back and I start hearing about a commotion in the hallway. I go out to find my mom, who had all of the girls bags, surrounded by nurses and security, somewhere in one of the bags was a transponder that they put on the babies so they can't be taken out of the hospital. They were trying to test each bag but never finding it. I knew one of the bags was packed by the nurse and not us so I grabbed that bag and shook out all of the clothes, I found the transponder in the foot of a sleeper. OK, that problem solved, can we please go home?
I have to say it is quite difficult to get these girls in the car. Here is the system I have come up with (since we have been home.) I put in Megan behind me, then her oxygen tank, then her monitor, then I check all of the hoses and wires and makes sure they don't get pinched anywhere. I follow the same procedure with Livy on the passenger side. When I have to use the stroller multiply all that twice. I bet it takes me 30 minutes to get in the car if you start counting from the time I change them from the large O2 tanks to the portable ones, thats with the diaper bag and girls ready.
Now that they are home I am finally going through that phase where every time I look at them I fall more in love. They are so beautiful and amazing, I am in total awe. I spend time every single day holding the two of them together at least once. I have never been happier.
It has been hard at home being limited by the length of tubing and wires. I never thought out all of this. In the hospital it is easy to keep the girls in their area. At home that not the way it is supposed to be. I should be able to carry a girls into the kitchen to fetch a bottle or their room for a diaper. I realized friday that the girls have never been in their room. The O2 tanks are in the living room so we set up the monitors next to them. They don't reach to either crib so I set up my pack n play in the living room for them to sleep in. I have about a 12 square foot area the three of us live in. I have to have someone there just so I can take a shower. Somewhere in my head I still had pictured bringing home normal babies. For example I pictured putting them in car seats or bouncy seats outside the bathroom door while I showered them I could listen to them and peek out. Not even close to how it is. Oh well, I am dealing with it I just have to do everything differently than I expected or that anyone else I know has done it.
If you look at the time stamp you will see that I wrote this around 5am. I don't sleep. That is the one thing that seems to be normal, lol. I will keep updated as much as I can. Please keep in touch.
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