Homeward Bound

My apologies to all of you walking around on Thursday with 80’s tunes stuck in your head. Here’s a Paul Simon one for you today. Homeward bound. Home, where my thought’s escaping. Home, where my music’s playing…
Jeffrey’s countdown ended without any interventions, and we were able to bring home our boy yesterday afternoon. He had his battery of vaccinations over the past two days: Pneumococcal Conjugate (Prevnar), Haemophilus Influenzae B (Hib), Polio, DPT, Hepatitis B, and RSV (Synagis). Vaccines are one of the few things that premature babies can get at the same time as their full term counterparts, despite their “corrected” age. Nurse Cindy was doing everything she could to help us get out the door, but was quite burdened by a whopping 4 babies in her room! Nevertheless, she got our supplies, clothes and food packed for the trip home while Mom fed him and I got his car seat ready. We were a team with a mission!
One of the strangest feelings I had when I got there was being able to pick up and hold my son, and walk across the room. For so long, he’s had a 6 foot leash to his bedside monitors. I was so excited to pick him up and walk to the other side of the room and shout, “Look, there’s your bed all the way over there!”
As we got ready to leave, we presented the NICU staff with a cookie cake for the day staff and one for the night staff, in appreciation of their hard work, care and support for our soon (and us) over the past 56 days. We signed a card with each one, addressed to all of the doctors, nurses and specialists that have been part of Jeffrey’s team for the past 2 months. To the best of our memory, thanks go to: Barb, Betty, Carol, Cathy, Cheri, Cheryl, Chris Tryon, Cindy, Colin, Daynell, Hyacinth, Jeanne, Judith, Judy, Julie (Annex), Julie (C2), Kathy, Kelly, Sister Mary Fran, Marnie, Nan, Nancy, Sandy, Shannon, Sonya, Sue, Thembi, Dr. Ben-Saad, Dr. Carl D’Angio, Dr. Erik Thingvoll, Dr. Mark Lavender, Dr. Rob Sinkin, Dr. Theresa Murray, and Dr. Woodward.
Our trip home was uneventful. We stopped at DiBella’s and got some subs for dinner. Dani stayed in the backseat with Jeff for the ride home, and I watched him in the mirror.
When we finally arrived home, I recorded his grand entrance with the camera and then unloaded the bags from the car while Danielle got him settled. For a tiny baby, he sure packs a lot of stuff! We opted to let him adjust to his new surroundings before feeding him, since the whole ordeal can be very stressful.
We laid him down in the play pen crib after his meal so that we could eat our sandwiches. From the couch, we couldn’t see into his crib. Being your typical, first night, neurotic parents, we put the baby video monitor in there, aimed at his face, and then set screen in front of us. Sure he was only 8 feet away, but it kept us from checking on him every 10 seconds.
The rest of the night helped us to calm down a little more. We took Jeffrey around the house and showed him rooms (though he can’t see them yet, his eyes aren’t ready). Cisco showed much interest in the sleeping tot, and watched him for about 45 minutes. Later, as he was being fed upstairs, Cisco stopped by again to brush up against the boy. Jeffrey didn’t seem to mind.
He slept fairly well for his first night. We set up his bassinet next to Danielle’s night stand, for easy access. He got up at midnight, 3 AM and 6:30 AM for milk and medicine. That’s not too bad, especially since Danielle and I traded off, and we both got about 6 hours of decent sleep.
Three changes of clothes later (prune juice stains clothing very easily!) and several diapers later… here we are. Dani’s in the living room paying our bills online, and I’m posting on the blog. The boy’s sleeping in his new bouncer. Things are just right.
And baby makes three.
Vitals: This part will become scarcer, since we don’t have a scale at home. I did consider buying a USB one that you can use for postage too, but why worry about it? That’s what our Pediatrician is for. We’ll be seeing Dr. Smith-Burke on Wednesday at 11 AM for his first visit. Oh boy, another car ride!
And the winner is: Grandma Lelah! Her guess of 2086.52 was just 3.48g from his official discharge weight. This is his weight as of Thursday, 3/2/06 at 6:00 PM, and recorded on his discharge paperwork. He was not weighed on Friday, since he was discharged before nightly weighing. Congratulations, your Amazon gift certificate is on its way. May I make a suggestion?