Home at last!

After 28 days, I was finally released from the hospital yesterday. My friend Marla couldn't have said it better, as you walk through the doors, the wind and sun on your face never felt so amazing! Last summer, she was a "resident" there for 5 1/2 weeks with her babies being born @ 31 weeks. They stayed in the NICU for 8 weeks so she got to know the place very well.

Mike & I went from SM Hospital directly over to Westwood to see Ian and meet his wonderful team of doctors and nurses. I finally got to meet Vladana in person. What a wonderful mind and spirit she has. She truly cares for all of her babies. We went over Ian's progress and there were some baby steps in a positive direction. She reviewed his lung x-rays with us and compared them to those taken on his first day of life. Quite a dramatic difference. Still not normal looking but definitely clearer than the white blob from the first scan.

His numbers were okay, not worse. As I'm there more I'll begin to understand them all as Mike does. When we called last night at around 11:30 they were actually a bit better. The nurse on said they had to give him a bit more of the sedative drug because he was trying to breathe over the oscillating ventilator, which is a good thing. Not good that he has to have more drugs but good that he's fighting to take his own breath. Maybe between my pep-talk and his Daddy's request for high scores (already pressuring the poor guy before preschool ;-) worked a bit. She also said his po2 number was up a bit which is good as well.

Being back with Lila is such a treat! Boy was she happy when Mike & I both walked in the door. And she was so excited to see that her brother had sent her a gift of a fairy crown. "My baby brother is so sweet to send me a gift," she says. 

It's amazing how well she articulates her feelings for a little girl still under the age of 3 (she'll be 3 in May). She kept giving us big hugs and telling us how happy she was that we were home and how much she missed us. Then, before her Grandma & Grandpa headed out for the drive back to Aptos, as she was giving my Mom a hug she told her "thank you for spending time with me Grandma". Really quite amazing!

It took a bit to get back into the groove. Moving around is still tough for me. Mike had to block our dog, Bella, from jumping all over me. Lila also has to get used to Mommy not being able to move the way I used to and the fact that she can't sit on my lap, but those are trivial things to deal with. It was fabulous to have dinner at the table with Lila & Mike, a shower and sleep in my own bed. The bed part was trickiest because it's flat, unlike the bendable hospital bed that I've been in for the last few weeks. I learned all too quickly that lying flat causes too much pressure on my incision but, was able to fix that a bit with a couple pillows under my legs. 

We're off to the hospital again. Lila had a bit of a rough start this morning leaving with our fabulous neighbor/friend, Cristina, who watches both Lila and her favorite neighbor friend across the street, Jakob, for us on Wednesday mornings. It was bound to be a bit of a different exit when we were both here but she'll do ok.