Having a newborn is hard. Having a preemie is harder. Bringing home a preemie during flu season is nerve wracking. Yet we made it through the hardest times and we are settling into our new "normal".

When we brought Maggie home, I greatest fear was her weak immune system catching something during cold/flu season. Our families came over in the days prior to her homecoming and help us clean EVERYTHING. We set up hand sanitizer on almost every surface (really thankful for buying a ton right now), set up a boot tray for shoes when we came in, and made anyone, including the girls, change clothes after being out. So the girls' new routine after school became: take off shoes, change clothes, wash hands very well, THEN you can come into the room where Maggie is.

We had to be careful about germs from outsiders as well. So pretty much starting the day we came home, we began social distancing. We wanted to have friends over for dinner to give them a chance to meet her, but it was too risky. For my sanity, we did have a few people we allowed to come in to watch her for me to take a nap every now and then. Nathan was still working (mostly from home to be able to help me when possible), so I appreciated the help. 

Maggie still had 2 goals: gain weight, and add in nursing sessions. But I could not add in more sessions if I didn't see her weight going up. So when we first came home, we were going in for weight checks every 1-2 weeks. Every time we stepped into the waiting room of the pediatricians' office I was so afraid she was going to catch something. Her weight continued to go up, but very slowly. And in addition, she was spitting up HUGE quantities of milk after she ate. The doctor recommended that we give her less milk more frequently. So for a few weeks I was feeding her every 2 hours around the clock. This was mostly bottles. We were also encouraged to keep her upright for a while after she ate to try and minimize the amount of spit up. And every few hours I had to fit in a pumping session to keep my supply up. I literally sat in my recliner all day. It was exhausting.

Since we were social distancing, we were not going to restaurants, I was not going to church, and we were not doing major outings as an entire family. We did however have a TON of doctor visits to make. In addition to the weight checks, Maggie had to regularly check in with the kidney specialist (for her blood pressure), the cardiologist (because of the small hole in her heart), and the eye doctor (because of her retinopathy of prematurity in her eyes). Her blood pressure has really come down on this medicine, and the doctor expects her to be able to wean off of it by her first birthday. The hole in her heart has mostly closed and they believe it will close on its own. And her eyes (the thing we have been most concerned about) seem to SLOWLY be getting better as well. If her eyes did not improve it would mean having laser treatments, which are administered at Levine's Children's Hospital, and would require an overnight stay. The doctor says her left eye, the one we are most concerned about, has improved slowly, but we aren't out of the woods just yet. We continue to see him every other week.

Our initial plan was to bring Maggie to church on Easter Sunday, and begin normal life beyond that. Obviously, that hasn't been possible. But Maggie has started gaining more weight, so we have gradually gotten to where we do less and less bottles and more and more nursing. I am currently giving her a bottle just before bedtime, and nursing the rest of the time. She has also started sleeping VERY well at night. Several times she has slept 9-10 hours between feedings.

As I look back on these old posts about everything we went through to get her home I am continually blown away and so thankful. Thankful to skilled doctors and nurses. Thankful to specialists. Thankful for insurance. Thankful for grandparents (I mean, we did have 2 older children who needed some semblance of normalcy for those 84 days). Thankful for modern medicine. Thankful for prayer warriors in our church. Thankful for friends who made a point to come visit her in the NICU or who brought food and came over to chat. Thankful for a loving God who saw fit to let me get sick when I did, alerting me to go to the hospital, and for seeing her through every test, every feeding, and every hurdle. We are blessed to have her and blessed to have a community that cares about her! Thanks for keeping up with her journey!