I know I just sort of left this site hanging. I thought I update it when we got the news on going home but it looks like my last entry was December 19th! Wow!

Well, spoiler alert: WE'RE HOME! lol. 

It's funny to think back to where my headspace was during certain times. When I was living in the moment, I truly believed I was handling every well. And I still believe that! But, the fact that I never came back and updated this after we had our major setback of not coming home is pretty telling. As you know, we faced a lot of ups & downs in the NICU but it was so hard to have plans of coming home and have that taken away. She obviously needed more time and support but it doesn't change the heartbreak it caused. I looked back at my entry and I did have the test results that everything came back negative and to this day, we don't know exactly what virus she caught so it basically gets chalked up to the common cold. It took her a little over 2 weeks to get weened back down on her oxygen support and to be able to start feeding her again.  On December 31, she went from high flow canula to low flow. Then we quickly kept weening her further and further because she was stable and showing that she was over whatever virus she had. It was a little scary for JR and I because it felt like they were going a little too quickly but of course we trusted their judgement. On January 1, we started discussing discharge again and needed to get setup with the at-home oxygen company to get the oxygen delivered to the house. But then the next day, our fav doctor that we trusted wholeheartedly said "let's try her off oxygen completely. That will be one less thing to worry about at home." WHAT?! No oxygen? Panic lol. But we listened and we tried.... and she ROCKED it. Her stats were amazing, she was showing us that her lungs were stable and she was ready to go home. So January 5th was our discharge day! We were getting her prescriptions filled, JR was getting the time off work, we were cleaning the house... it was go time. Then on the evening of the 3rd, I was just hanging out with Wes and the NP called me (she didn't know I was in the room) and was like "Hey... so how does going home tomorrow sound instead???" Yes, yes, a million times yes!! I called JR crying and he wasn't quite on the same page as me lol. He wanted to wait until the 5th because that's what we were planning for. He questioned if we were ready but I asked him what else we needed to get done? That's when he realized that we had been ready. We had everything we needed. I still wasn't going to hold my breath because clearly you never know what can change.

So the next day on January 4th, we got up... stopped at Starbucks of course lol... and pulled into the hospital. The second we pulled in, I started crying. I was hit with a flood of emotions that this was most likely the last time we had to do this.  I wasn't sure what to expect when we walked in but to my surprise, our primary night nurse had basically cleaned our room for us. The Christmas decorations were off the door and replaced with a "NICU Grad" poster. She had a sign in her crib that said "I'm outta here!" and she was wearing her onesie that my mom made that said "Finally moving in with my parents #NICUgrad" So it was real. We were going home! Things moved pretty quick that morning since we had everything done prior. We were there for probably a little over an hour. My mom met us outside of the hospital doors to get a few pictures of us walking out. Then we loaded her up and headed for home!

It's crazy how far we've come in these past two months. We were your typical new parents - woke up to every single sound she made and I was up every 20 minutes (literally) checking her breathing. I've learned from many people that this doesn't change throughout your childs whole life lol. She now sleeps 6.5 hours at night and is 12lbs 2oz. We just got cleared to get her off the 27 cal Neosure formula which is specifically made for preemies. We've moved onto 24 cal Pro-Sensitive but we might be switching again because we think she has a lactose intolerance. She is still on breastmilk mixed with the added formula for calories so if it is a true dairy/lactose problem..... well then, that sucks for me lol. Goodbye, cheese. But we are still working through that. She may also have to switch to 100% formula :( She is also ahead of where she should be for her "adjusted" age so we are happy with that! It makes all these milestones so hard because she is ahead of the adjusted curve but of course behind for her actual age (which duh - that's expected). So we just go with the flow and lean on the doctors/nurses to guide us. 

I'm sure I'll update this again. Hopefully not in another 2 months!