We finally made it to four months of being home last week — just as much time as we spent in the NICU! Realizing this leaves us amazed at how long we truly spent in the NICU especially since it's hard to remember a time before Addison & Kaylee were home with us.

Addison continued eating well enough last week that we were officially able to cancel her scheduled surgery! All the glory to God!! We are so thankful. We love having her completely free from feeding tubes and pumps. Now we're praying that she's able to continue gaining weight as she should!

Unfortunately, Kaylee stayed on her same trajectory with feeding, so we continued with her G-tube surgery as scheduled last week. The procedure was fairly short (1.5 hours) and went as planned. She was quickly moved from her post-op room to her recovery room where we ended up only needing to spend one night in the hospital. We were quite thankful it was only the one night as it was a lot less comfortable than the NICU rooms with less specialized care, a shared room, and the fact that we couldn’t all stay together since patient caregivers had to be 18+. Because of this, Janessa & Addison went to stay with her sister's family in Everett that night while Matt spent the night with Kaylee. Kaylee seemed to have minimal pain, but was quite tired from the anesthesia and sad to be hungry after not getting any food all day. She got lots of extra cuddles and was much happier the next day once the doctor gave the all clear to resume feeding her.

We got discharged later in the day and made the push for home. Kaylee slept the whole way, woke up for under an hour while we were unpacking, and then continued to sleep most of the night! I think she was just as happy to be home as we were. She has been doing wonderfully at home with her new tube and is back to her happy, smiley self! 

We expect that Kaylee will have the G-tube until she is at least one year corrected (November) when she will hopefully be able to consume all of her necessary calories through solids. However, it could be less time or it could be more. Only time will tell and it is ultimately up to Kaylee and what she can tolerate.

At this point, with the girls' feeding difficulties resolved for the time being, we feel as though our continued NICU journey has come to an end and now we're in a "normal" parenting phase. Because of this (and the fact that the babies keep our hands full so we rarely find time to update it anyway), we feel like it is time to say goodbye to our CaringBridge page. We so appreciate this platform and the ability it gave us to share our story and enlist the masses in prayer for our family. What a gift it and you all have been to us during this time! Please feel free to reach out to us directly if you'd like to hear how we are doing. Thank you all for everything!

May God be glorified for the kindness and mercy He has shown our family during this season — He has proven Himself faithful again and again!

Much love,

Matt, Janessa, Addison, & Kaylee De Groot