Charlie is Home!

While it didn't exactly happen in the way we had hoped or expected, Charlie is finally home from the NICU! On day 95 of his life, our little chunkers is home!

We knew the babies homecoming would be soon. We hoped that both Lily and Charlie would be ready by the end of the month, but Lily seems to want to take a few more days with her favorite nurses at the NICU. And even though we really wanted both babies to come home at the same time, there was no reason to make Charlie wait around any more. So around 2:30 this afternoon, when it became obvious that Lily wouldn't be ready any time in the next couple of days,we found out that Charlie would be discharged in just a few hours!

The suddenness of it was a bit jarring. We kept feeling like "we aren't ready," when in reality we've been ready for a long time now. So once we realized it was happening and rushed to do a little last-minute prep work at home, we raced to the NICU to start the discharge process with Charlie.

Other than a little car seat strap issue, the process was pretty smooth. We got some instructions from the nurses about basic care and feeding. We were given appointments for different doctors (one appointment was for six months from now!), specialists whom Charlie and Lily will need to see. We said goodbye to a couple of Charlie's primary nurses (Nurse Sue was off today but she came in just to see us off-- seriously, how great is she???). And that was it. We were ready to go.

We drove home without any problems, somewhat surprised that Charlie's apnea monitor didn't ding at all. We got home to find that Brooke's mom had decorated both the front of our house and inside it. Roy Kitten greeted us at the door and scowled at his new competition for Brooke's affections. I took Charlie on a brief tour of the house while Brooke prepared his first "home cooked" meal. We fed him and burped him and he's currently happily resting in his pack and play and sucking on his pacifier.

What an odd feeling. Charlie is home.... After three months in the NICU, after six months of pregnancy issues, after nearly two years of trying to have a baby of our own, we finally have a baby in our house. Wow. Surreal is the only word that even comes close to describing this.

With a little luck, Lily will be joining her brother here at home soon. She had some pretty serious heart rate drops early this afternoon. She recovered fine but she has to show that she has no episodes for at least a full 24-hour period before they'll let her go. It was hoped that she would be ready to go tomorrow and we planned on bringing both babies home together tomorrow, but since that wasn't going to happen we couldn't leave Charlie in the NICU when he was ready to go. Luckily, Lily's nurses will take good care of her and make sure she gets home as soon as she's ready. But you can't rush a pretty girl!


Finally.


As you can see, Charlie is just over-the-top excited to be home... really...


I have already started my new role. I'll be heading up the Cuddles and Naps Division. Brooke will handle everything else.


Brooke picked out a sporty outfit for Charlie to wear home, but then realized that he would need something warm to go on top of it. This was the warmest thing we had. It was just a tad too big for him, but I can't wait for him to fit in it because he'll look like the kid from Where the Wild Things Are.


Just because she's pretty, here's a picture of The Bug.