Thursday July 30th

THE GIRLS MADE IT - THEY ARE HOME...

Praise the Lord. We have made it. The girls came home today after 4.5 months. It was an interesting evening and day in the NICU. We were very fortunate that their primary Night Nurse, Andrea, was able to change her schedule so that we could all be together for one last night. We also were able to spend the day with Crystal, the girls primary daytime Nurse. These 2 Nurses have meant so much to us as a family and especially the girls. Along with all of the Doctors, these amazing people, kept the windy road of the NICU bearable. We love them all for all of their efforts, patience, guidance, and pure love for us and the girls. They are truly special people that have the very difficult job of managing not only what needs to happen on a day to day basis for the health of the all the babies that they care for but also the emotions of all of the family members they encounter along the way.

I also have to quickly comment on the NICU's Sleep In Room. We were fortunate as we were the first family to stay in their recently redone room. It was really nice. They have done a great job trying to replicate a feeling of home there. I can say it made a big difference this past evening.

Mom and Dad were pretty much on our own (Full Duty) but we had a couple of visits from Andrea. We gave them all of their medications, did their assessments at the appropriate times, and bottle fed Kinsley. Trinity took her first continuous feed throughout the night through her NG tube so she just needed to be assessed. All went pretty well but little sleep for Mom and Dad.

Crystal was very nice and brought us breakfast tacos - so good. Thanks Crystal. During the day we had so much to go through. All the questions, paperwork, and review of everything that they needed for the days and months to come. It was an exciting but scary time for us. The girls were ready to leave but were sad to say bye to Andrea and Crystal.

We got all of their prescriptions and will need to fill them on the way home - Caffeine, Iron, Multi-Vitamins, Reglan, and Zantac. It is a crazy schedule of meds but necessary to the girls. Both Trinity and Kinsley get these meds at different times through syringes. Looks like we will be running a Pharmacy out of the house but hopefully not for too long. The girls each will be coming home on monitors to alert us if they have a heart rate drop or any Apnea. These monitors sound like Fire Alarms so hopefully they will not go off to often. They also will go off if there is a loose connection - oh no. Trinity comes home with a Feeding Pump for continuous feeds at night as she still is not taking her entire bottles during the day. She will be put on a nighttime rate based on her consumption during the daytime feeds.

As you can see there is a lot going on but that is OK with us as we will finally be together as a Family. Thank you Lord for this path and please give us the energy and patience in the coming days and months.

Our Daily Encouragement:

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, is the Rock eternal.

Isaiah 26:3-4