The weekend with my baby was the best ever. I was on cloud nine! Once I landed and got my rental car I drove straight to the hospital. I got the the NICU in the early afternoon and proceeded to jump right in. I helped change his diaper, I cuddled and read books to him and even got to feed him. And that's pretty much how the whole weekend went. Unless it was time for the nurses shift change (and no parents are allowed during shift change) then I was in the NICU holding my boy. I already knew how much I loved him, but this is where we bonded. I spent hours talking to him and telling him all about his new family and where he would live. I told him he had puppies to play with and so many cousins to grow up with. The best part was whenever I was holding him and talking to him, his breathing and oxygen saturations would stabilize. And he would have very few or zero apnea spells. He was content with me and I was smitten with him.
And then I had to leave. I spent my last day in the NICU holding my baby and sobbing. I couldn't pull it together for anything! The sweet NP and social worker tried to comfort me by saying he would be home soon, but that didn't help the fact that I had to leave him again. My heart was broken. I did not want to leave at all. So much in fact that I stayed until the last possible second and nearly missed my flight home. But I did pry myself away. I came home and continued to call twice a day. I considered adding a third call, but I didn't want to be a pest. So I controlled myself.
It was after my July visit that I started getting pictures emailed to me almost daily. God bless that nurse! She saved my sanity. Especially since it ended up being almost one month exactly until we would get the "get your arses here" call.
The Call:
I was at work on August 25th. My phone rang and it was the NICU number. I immediately answered, worried that something was wrong. They never called me, I called them! It was the social worker and she had me on speaker phone with the NP. They gave me an update on Little M's status and all seemed to be going well. Then they asked the greatest question ever, "Can you get here this weekend to take him home?" They didn't even finish asking before I told them we could be there on Sunday the 29th. That would give Mr. Temmie and me time to make work schedule arraignments and I had offered to make a wedding cake for a friend's daughter. She was getting married that Saturday so I finished the cake and then we bolted out of town that afternoon.
We drove as far as Reno and then stopped for the night. I had hoped to have one last "date night" with Mr. Temmie before we became parents, but after the long drive, we just got some dinner and then fell asleep watching t.v. Oh well! We had a good 8 years of date nights under our belts. It was time to move on.
The next morning while I was showering and getting ready, the power went out. At first I thought Mr. Temmie was messing with the bathroom lights. But when I got out of the shower and noticed the t.v. was off I put it all together. So we did our best to get ready in the dark. Mr. Temmie had to take a cold shower since the hot water heater was apparently electric. Once we were ready we decided to check out early and hit the road. It was stormy in Reno and we still had to drive through the canyons. So we grabbed all our stuff and headed for the elevator. It was then we realized that the power was out and we were on the 16th floor. Was the elevator even working and if so, was it safe to use? We were told there was one car operating. We waited a good 15 minutes for it to stop on our floor. When it finally did it was completely full. So we grabbed our bags and hit the stairs. I guess the good thing was we were going down not up 16 floors, but hauling bags while doing it was no fun! We finally got to the lobby only to see that the slot machines still had power. Glad the hotel/casino had their priorities straight! Anyway we got in line to check out and just as it was our turn, the lights came back on. And that was the end of THAT adventure! And after a quick stop for breakfast and fuel we were on our way!
We arrived in California mid-afternoon. We stopped at my mother-in-laws house to drop off our bags and then we headed to the NICU. At this point I was so excited I was shaking! This was the first time Mr. Temmie and I were allowed in together. At this point birth mom had relinquished her rights and Mr. Temmie and I had legal custody of Little M.
We got to the NICU, scrubbed our hands and then held our boy. We talked to the nurses about the discharge plan. They went over some basic parenting stuff and we brought in the car seat so the staff could do his car seat challenge. Basically he had to sit in the seat for an hour while hooked up to monitors and make sure his oxygen level and heart rate were stable. We decided to run back to mother-in-law's house to get an overnight bag while they did the car seat check. When we got back, shift change had taken place and a room had been set up for us to spend the night. We got settled in our "room", it was more like a closet really! And then we had the nurse bring in our baby. We didn't sleep much. It was too surreal. Little M was off all monitors and completely in our care. We spent the night trying to sleep on HORRIBLE hide-a-beds and feeding and changing our baby. It was the best night ever! At 11:00 the next morning all the paperwork was done, we were packed up and they sent us on our way. A few hugs on the way out the door and that was it. We were free!!!!! We loaded Little M into the car and we didn't look back. :)
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