Home

Having Elena home was mostly great. The first night home was our first night without monitors, and I was so nervous she’d stop breathing Jason and I took shifts to watch her (Jason, for the record, was not nervous, but we did stay up to give me peace of mind). During feedings she tended to be “sleepy” and I had to pinch her a couple of times to make sure she was okay. I asked her pediatrician if I was overreacting, and he said ABSOLUTELY NOT. We thought Elena was a good baby, as she hardly ever cried. She was so tiny in her big huge crib, and her preemie clothes—it was hard to imagine she would ever grow out of anything.
The worst thing about her coming home was I only had a week left of my maternity leave. I fought hard for extra time, and they gave me 2 more weeks. I was pretty angry about it. Since she had come early, we hadn’t gotten daycare figured out, and she was on my insurance, and I had planned on keeping my job. We got The Grandparents to fill in after I went back to work, and eventually we got a spot in a daycare we liked.

TRANS

During her 4th hospital week, she was transferred to the Transitional Nursery—still technically part of the NICU, but basically a place for babies to bulk up and get ready to come home. We learned to give Elena a bath, and started her bottle feeding, with little success. Elena did not have much strength to suck. This did improve, and eventually she could breastfeed, but poorly. Putting weight on seemed to take forever, and she’d still have apnea and bradycardias. We had to wait 9 days without any As and Bs before we could go home, and she had to weigh close to 5 lbs.
2 days before she was ready to come home, she had an “episode”. I can’t really remember if it was an A or B, but I definitely remember the nurse not thinking it was anything, and me thinking “PLEASE don’t send her home if she’s not ready!”. I was extremely nervous about the homecoming. Jason was ecstatic.