Tonight I am sitting in our living room, having just put Liv down to bed, hoping that she doesn’t wake up so I can get this blog done 🙂
All day I have been reflecting on where we were one year ago. It is honestly crazy to think that it has been a year already. This time last year, our little family of three was huddled up in the overnight room of the NICU. It was our “trial run” of doing everything on our own before the real thing. We were so happy that we had one of our primaries, Jessica, aka Reese, (If you know, you know) that night. And our other night primary, Mara, was on the floor too.
I remember sitting in that room and having so many emotions. Happiness that we were getting to go home and we had all survived the NICU (Liv for sure did the heavy lifting there). Sadness to be leaving our little community that we had grown to love and who loved our little Liv and fought for her as much as we did. Thinking about them now still makes me tear up. I also felt nervous. Taking a baby home on oxygen and medication was a scary unknown. Had I learned a lot being in the NICU for 156 days…yes. But not having our nurse besties right there felt daunting. Luckily we had phone numbers, so they were never too far ;-)But most of all, I felt gratitude. Gratitude for this journey we were allowed to be on. Grateful for the strength that we were given during this time. Grateful for new friends who had walked the same path, that I am still so thankful for. Grateful to our amazing family, friends, and those that are connected to them that we never even met, but heard our story and prayed for Olivia. I am sitting here with tears of the thankfulness because there is no way we could have made it through without all the love.
That night, I wrote the last hospital blog and tried to get some sleep, hah! The “bed” was awful, so not much sleep was had. In the morning we were up bright and early. Discharge would be pretty quick. We got to have Erin, our first primary, as our discharge nurse. Honorable mention to our other two primaries, Courtney and Ariel. Ariel was in a class, I think, and Court was on the slopes, but we had a proper “see you later” the day before. I ran to get us some Starbucks, my mom was headed over. We were wrapping everything up with the doctor, met our pulmonologist, who we love, and tying up a few loose ends. One of the most special moments was when Jodene, one of the Charge nurses we got close with, came in and gave us a special message. She said many things but the one thing that stuck out was her telling us that we give them all the credit for Olivia’s success but we, Jeremy and me, were the real reason Olivia was coming home. By being there everyday and investing everything in her, that is why she was thriving. It meant so much. We were lucky that we were able to go everyday because not every family can do that. But at the same time, it can also take a toll. Soon after that, it was time for our parade. This is a celebration that we saw a few times since Liv was the elder baby in the NICU. I’ll probably share the video tomorrow again. We walked through the whole NICU while everyone came out of the pods with streamers, celebrating our homecoming. It was, again, a bittersweet moment. So happy to be going home, but sad to be leaving the doctors, nurses, child life (special shout out to Auntie Sid!) respiratory therapists, physical therapists, music therapy, lactation specialists, admin staff, cleaning custodians, and security guards that we had come to know.
Today in between the reflections, I had to work, but Livy also had an appointment with Speech at Sutter. When I made that appointment for her the date hadn’t dawned on me. It eded up being the perfect day for us to be there. The appointment went well. We are continuing to work on finding ways for Liv to want to drink more from straw and open cups. But good news is that she had some great weight gain! We have a 17.5 pounder! Speech only does weight. Liv’s next big appointment is with the pediatrician in three weeks and we will be able to update head and height at that time.
There is more I could probably share about Liv’s progress in other areas, but I don’t want to press my luck with Liv not waking up before I post this. Thank you all for being invested in our family’s journey and more specifically in Olivia’s beautiful life. We love that little girl more than anything in the world and we feel so blessed that we get to be her parents.
Until next time…
PS My reviewer, aka Jeremy, is at his bowling league, so please excuse any typos 🙂
The One... 