After 54 days and more than 5400 miles of driving, Grace and Emmett are finally in our home town. No, they’re not home yet–they have some more growing to do first–but they’ve finally been transferred to our local hospital. See pictures of the trip.
Getting them out the door was no easy tasks. First Gracie had to tolerate her feeds well (she did), then they had to pass eye exams (they did), and finally they needed a crack transport team to drive them the 50 miles home. After a false start on Monday (at 1pm we were going, at 1:15pm we were not), Emmett was all packed up and in the transport isolette Tuesday afternoon, waiting to be joined by his sister when the transport nurse’s pager went off. A more critical transport had come up. (We would have been annoyed, but reason told us that if there was a family with an urgently sick child, they should get the medical attention they needed.) Crushed that we might have to wait again (and waiting would probably mean they’d find MORE reasons to delay transport), the charge nurse called up another off-shift transport specialist who came in just for us. This guy could not be called off for another transport or even a dressing change–he was ours. We were so anxious and jittery that we loaded up with calorie-laden sugar while we waited for him to arrive. To add to the excitement, this would be the first time Grace and Emmett would be together again since their birth.
Finally, a couple hours behind, our precious babies were loaded into the ambulance and we followed behind them on our final trek back from the Children’s Hospital (at least for now. There will probably be follow-up check-ins there over the coming years). The babies slept the whole way, completely oblivious to one another.
Now we have a new set of doctors and nurses to meet, new rules, and the chance to set out a new routine. We can now see the kids, come home and have lunch, and be back in time for their next feeding. A relief! Not to mention that for the past few weeks, Emmett and Grace have resided on different floors of the hospital (him in the Intermediate Nursery, her in the NICU), and now we can all be a family again in one small room.
And for those of you who will no doubt beg for the details of their current status:
- Grace is getting close to the 3 pound mark, Emmett is about 3.8 pounds.
- Emmett has been breathing on his own for weeks now. Grace has been back and forth from CPAP to Nasal Cannula, doing a 3-day stint on cannula last weekend, but overall she is slowly improving. It looks like breathing fully and easily on her own will be a long road. She just needs to rest and grow.
- Grace’s feedings are slowly going up and getting closer to being all breastmilk (they still feed her by IV as well). Emmett is learning to breastfeed and feed by the bottle, but isn’t strong enough yet to get all of his food this way, so he is also fed through a tube.
We are happy to be home. My mommy-senses can feel that my babies are near and even with traffic my beloveds are only minutes away. Amen!
