Two Months

10/26/11

It is blowing my mind that my child is now well over 2 months old. I guess the plus side is that she still looks like a wee newborn?

Pardon my absence but a lot has happened in the past month! Well, a month and a day…

We continued to work on Juliet’s feeding but weren’t really getting anywhere. She was only getting one feed attempt per shift and b/c it was so frustrating for her and her nurses, I’m not convinced either party really took it very seriously.

Fast forward to October 15 when the hospital seemed to explode with babies needing extra special care. As such, Juliet was moved to the Special Care Nursery which is usually where full term babies go that just need a few days of medical observation/intervention. We were told that the core nurses in this nursery were feeding specialists and it wouldn’t be too long before we got Juliet home.

They weren’t kidding! By Friday, October 21 her feeding tube was removed! She was taking all her feedings by mouth! We couldn’t believe it. Dare we hope for an early discharge?

Two days later I called for my morning update to find out that her feeding tube had been put back in. Not only that, but they decided to only give her a bottle attempt at every other feeding. We were devastated. But we also didn’t believe this was any of Juliet’s doing. It turns out that the weekend nurses were not core nurses and were extremely lazy. From what we observed, they were more concerned with football games and computer games than doing their jobs. They condescended to me when I expressed my disappointment so I complained to the provider’s and they agreed to let Juliet attempt a bottle for every feeding, with the agreement that anything she didn’t take, she would get through the tube. Dan and I spent several hours at the hospital that afternoon to ensure this was happening.

I decided that I just couldn’t trust my baby to anyone else’s care from that point forward and decided to go ahead an begin my maternity leave that week. Monday morning, I was up at the hospital for the provider’s rounds and was pleased to find out that her feeding tube had been removed once again. I finally told them point blank that it was obvious to me that my daughter was no longer benefiting from medical intervention and that what she needed at this point was parental care.

They must have agreed with me b/c when I showed up for Tuesday’s rounds they began talking discharge! They let me know that she would need to continue to eat at the rate she was eating and she still needed her 2 month immunizations, but once that was complete, she was free to go!

And true to theirs word, on October 27, Juliet was discharged from the hospital!

It had always been my goal to have her home before her due date and we got to take her a whole week beforehand! My true goal was to have her home for Halloween and I cannot believe it actually happened!

Such a proud papa. He is truly an amazing father, not that I ever had any doubts!

Now I am soaking up as much of my little girl as humanly possible. And we’re both reveling in the fact that we no longer have to drive to Durham each day! This is not by any means the road I would have wished to have taken but I can honestly say, I am a much stronger person for taking it. And in turn, I think it has made me an even better mother.

And for those keeping track, today would have been her due date.

11/3/11

*kisses*