After a long two weeks in the NICU, we thought that it would be at least another week before they'd be able to come home. They still had to be able to take a bottle during all 8 of their feedings and not need their feeding tube at all. Our main concern with bringing Emma home was that her SATs dropped while she ate. This is the saturation level of oxygen in her blood stream. She was basically forgetting to breath while she ate (the suck, swalllow and breathe is a difficult task for preemies) and she would turn a bluish, grey around her mouth. That was very scary for Mom and Dad since we wouldn't have the comfort of the monitor to look at when we got her home. Luckily she started to improve towards the middle of the week and we became more comfortable at recognizing the signs and were able to slow her feeding down before her SATs dropped.
We got the call on Wednesday morning, June 10th, from the nurse at the NICU. She said that the Neonatologist was ready to release the babies and that we needed to schedule our "rooming in" for Thursday night. OMG! The babies are coming home! We were so excited and nervous all at the same time. We did not think they would be coming home before the following Monday, so we had to scramble a little to make sure we were ready for them on Friday when we brought them home. We also had to bring their car seats to the NICU sometime that day in order for them to test the babies while they were still hooked up to the monitors to make sure they'd be able to tolerate the ride home. They passed with flying colors.
We got to the hospital Friday night at about 9pm and had to watch a CPR video and show the nurse that we understood the video and could perform infant CPR if necessary. The babies were then loaded up in their little cribs (clear plastic bins) on carts which had all their goodies that we might need during the night - diapers, formula, wipes, etc. and we were off to our room.
It was a super tiny room - with only enough space for a double bed, glider, and sink. It wasn't the Ritz Carlton, but it served it's purpose :) Tony and I were up with them every three hours to feed them, change their diapers and then I would pump. The babies did awesome and I guess so did we, since they let us bring them home on Friday! LOL!
We met with the doctor at about noon to go over our discharge instructions. She said the babies were in pefect health and should have no long term effects from being born early and being on the C-PAP machine and oxygen, so that was a huge relief! We were told to schedule an appointment with their pediatrician in a week. Emma's weight was 5lbs 8oz and Logan's was 6 lbs 2oz. After our meeting with the doctor, we loaded up all their "goodies" and put them in their carseats and we headed out for our first car ride home. It was an emotional goodbye, but we were so glad to finally be bringing them home.
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