So, after getting up in the middle of the night, Barbara decided to skip the 6:30/7:30 AM feeding. It was just going to be too short a night. Since we had many of those to look forward to when we got the boys home, we again took advantage of the staff at the NICU to take care of our boys (and in this case, us as well, by letting us sleep). Barbara went in at 9:30 and I went in at 10:30. We were greeted with the news that today was the day. First thing in the morning, they had decided that the boys would be ready to discharge that afternoon. So, after discussion, we decided that we wanted to try to get everything ready including packing the car up. Then we’d do one more feeding, bundle the boys into the car and get outta Dodge and try to make it home as fast as possible and see if we could make it all the way for the next diaper change and feeding. We had roughly 3 hours between feedings and the trip home was about 2 hours and 15 minutes. I also remembered that we did not yet have a baby monitor for home, which we’d need when we got there. So, we figured that we’d go to lunch, and get the baby monitor, come back do the 12:30/1:30 feeding, then pack up the car, do the 3:30/4:30 feeding and get on the road.
So we went for a quick lunch at the Pennsylvania Dutch place, picked up the monitor, made it back and did the feeding. Then we scrambled to pack our things up (fortunately, having moved the night before, we were pretty close to ready), and headed out to pack up the car. Got that done and made it back just before the 3:00 feeding. But the amount of paperwork needed to discharge the boys was prodigious and we were trying to juggle feeding the boys during this. So with us trading off feeding duty and paperwork, we got everything done and managed to get ready by 4:30ish…pretty good. Since the boys had to ride in wheelchairs for discharge, we each took one baby (in the carseat) and two nurses pushed us down to the car. After I brought the car around, the nurses did an inspection of the car seat installation. While I followed the instructions in the manual, I still did it wrong. I did not correctly attach the car seat to the in-seat anchors (that hide in the space between the seat and the seat back). They pretty quickly unconnected what I had done and reconnected it and it was definitely more secure when they were done. Whew! I’m glad they knew what they were doing. It just goes to show, that no matter how sure you are about the car seat installation, it helps to have a car seat installer inspect your installation just to be sure. I mean, why risk your kids life because you think you did it right?
Unfortunately, by the time all of this was done, it was 5:00 PM. We headed out and made fairly good time, until we hit the Baltimore beltway and rush hour traffic, *SIGH*. This was about 6:15 PM and it was not good. The kids were starting to get antsy. Finally at 6:30, when they were really get restless, we were still stuck in traffic, so I exited the road and we found the local Wal-Mart. We had been given a portable changing kit (Thanks, James & Sheila!!), but we only had one, so we had to change the boys one at a time. So, Barbara stayed in the car with one of the boys, while I took the boys one-by-one into the Walmart to change them. Unfortunately, both of them *REALLY* hate to have their diaper changed and scream bloody murder when you even start unsnapping their clothes. So, I got to feel like I was a baby torturer and had every guy coming in to use the rest room wondering what I was doing to this (these) child(ren). But, the best part was this older guy who was standing at the exit door. He was supposed to check bags and receipts as people leave and said something to the effect of “Have a nice day and come back soon.” as patrons left. Now, we have two matching car seats, so I took the first child out and he wished me well. I switched children, came back and probably 5 minutes afterwards, I again walked out, holding what looked like the same child in the same car seat (the only difference was the blanket on the boys was slightly different) and he just stared at me leaving the second time and even forgot to say something congenial to me as I left. J
But after this quick side trip, the boys quieted down. We were afraid that we were going to have to stop and feed them and we didn’t want to have to do this, so we just tried to make a bee-line for home. About 40 minutes later, we made it home and they only started to cry when we were minutes from home. So we hurried them into the house, fed them and once we got them settled (into their new cribs!), we were able to get to unpacking the car and all. One problem was that our upstairs A/C seemed to have decided to go on vacation and it was boiling upstairs (79 deg). I didn’t feel safe leaving the boys there and was considering moving them to the first floor for the night. But it was a relatively cool evening (in the 60’s) and by opening the window and running a fan pointed at the floor (so as not to create a draft on the boys), I was able to get the temperature down to about 75 deg, which was enough to allow the boys to sleep in the nursery. We called our trusty HVAC guy that night to have him call us back first thing in the morning.
Even though I had to take off an extra week due to the NICU stay, we got home on Wednesday and that still left me with 5 days off before I had to go back to work and I am going back to work part-time (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) until the week of Thanksgiving. Barbara will start the following week part-time (Tuesdays and Thursdays) until after Thanksgiving. That means that one of us will be home with the boys until they are about 3 months old.
Despite the various annoyances, on September 21, 16 days after they were born, the boys were finally HOME.
No comments:
Post a Comment