6.23.09: Welcome home Daphne!

We had a really nice weekend, spending father's day with the girls. Daphne even decided to give dad some extra 'presents' while getting her diaper changed, which left us both hysterically laughing (I thought the opportunity for 'spray' would only be from boys, but turns out our girls are talented in strategic aim as well). It is amazing, I never thought I would be cheering on poop, but I was - of course it helped that dad was changing her :)

On Monday, when arriving at the NICU we were greeted with the wonderful news that Daphne would be coming home on Wednesday. She has been completing all of her minimum feeds and in record time. Brant and I were thrilled, our first little girl was coming home. Of course we wish all of them were coming home, but progress is progress and we will take it. We went home in the afternoon between our day and evening NICU visits and began really sorting out what we needed, had, and prepared appropriately. We left our trip to Target for Tuesday night but ordered several key items via amazon (thanks again Kochmans for the free 2-day shipping)

Upon arriving to the NICU on Tuesday around 9:30am, we were surprised with the news that Daphne was coming home THAT day - and it needed to be before noon to prevent another day of NICU charges that our insurance may not cover. While we were thrilled to have her home sooner than we expected, I became immediately overwhelmed with the abundance of things I wished to accomplish before she arrived. We also needed to watch a CPR video before we could take her home and again, the clock was ticking. Regardless, we completed the necessary trainings and wisked away our middle daughter into her new snazzy car seat and prepared for the 30 minute drive home (during which she slept the entire time).

I was thrilled to discover that overnight Brant had developed the 'daddy driving gene' a gene that makes men drive calmly when a baby is present. A word to all you ladies out there - keep this benefit in mind when deciding if you want to have children. Upon arriving safely at home, we put Daphne into the crib (all the girls will be co-bedded until we move to LA). Then Brant and I just starred at her sleeping, for probably an hour. We sat on the side of our bed and just stared. It kind of reminded me of Christmas Eve and trying to catch a glimpse of santa clause. Every stir, grunt and groan, one of us jumped up to make sure she was ok. I am happy to report, that eventually we calmed down. Perhaps it was due to the list of things we still needed to do while our little one was sleeping since she arrived home a tad earlier than expected.

After her next feeding, we knew we had a couple hours of napping time before she would awake. We contemplated our scheduled trip to Target and then realized that we had to adventure out with her at some point - why not now. So we did it. We packed up a diaper bag and went to Target collecting only the essentials as we knew her clock was ticking. We made it all the way home without any crying or even big stirs. We did however realize that a trip such as this with three little ones would be very different and likely impossible for a while - but one day at a time and this trip was a success. Thanks Daphne.

Later that night we decided to press our luck and see if we could make a trip down to see Fiona and Stella who are still in the NICU. Again, just after Daphne's feeding, we packed her up and headed down to Hyde Park. Daphne is no longer allowed in the NICU and hanging out in a hospital lobby full sick people didn't seem like a good idea - so Brant took Daphne into work while I went up to the NICU. I was able to feed Stella, Fiona and pump all within 1.5 hours. The amazing thing is that both Fiona and Stella were eating about half of their feedings via mouth (the other via tube) but tonight, they BOTH ate all of their feedings via mouth for me. I think they know that Daphne is gone, and they want to come home too. The nurses were amazed and thrilled. We were told that the desire to eat would just click for everyone one day and we are really hoping that this is the click they were talking about - of course it is really too early to tell, but again, progress is progress.

As you can tell, things are going really well. As of Tuesday, the girls are 36 weeks gestational age and 12 days old. To already have Daphne with us is a huge treat and probably a good way for us to learn what we are doing before everyone is home. For now, we continue some sort of crazy schedule balancing one newborn at home, two in the NICU and figuring out this whole parenthood thing.