Last Night

Hello, Abby here. Well, Gib was nice and let me have the last night here in the hospital. That is very fitting because I made him take the first night. When they showed us our room here at Children’s, it dawned on me that now it was going to be just us watching her all the time, no more NICU nurse 5 feet from her bed. Well, I panicked and begged Gib to take the first night. He stepped up and took the first and now I have the last.

As Gib mentioned yes, I have been nesting. It is actually the second time that I have nested. One week before Ellie was born, with the help of my friend Jess, I put the finishing touches on our new nursery. Then 5 months later I had to pack that unused nursery into boxes where it stayed until this week. As I unpacked I had to shake off the feeling that I might be tempting fate once again. But, here we are and everything is still on track to finally having a baby in our nursery.

Gib and I are fully aware that even though we may be going home with Ellie tomorrow we will defiantly be back. And just because we are going home now, it does not mean that we will be home for Christmas. We know that we have another long stay ahead of us when Ellie’s intestines are reconnected, many months from now, but we also know there may be many shorter visits peppered in between.

Ellie and I spent the end of the afternoon and this evening being visited by staff saying goodbye and getting many hugs. The staff here on 8 West have become so much a part of our lives that they really feel like part of our family. Ellie loves the staff and the attention that they give her so much that Gib and I fear that she will be bored with just the two of us. But in reality she is going to be so amazed with all the new things that she gets to see that we hope there will be no chance of boredom.

I think the person Ellie will miss the most is the kind woman named Anna that cleans our room everyday. She and Ellie have a special relationship, so much so that if we need Ellie to smile for a picture all we have to do is ask her where Anna is.

Ellie is doing very well and making Gib and I feel better and better about her future. Just to give you all an idea of how well Ellie is doing, (please knock on wood before reading this) she has gone from 4 different medications everyday to get her intestines to work to none. She is drinking 40-45 cc bottles (that is an ounce and a half to the layman) every two hours. She is walking laps around her crib and is off the TPN for 8 hours a day. We were hoping she would be off the TPN for 12 hours a day at discharge but Ellie can not maintain her potassium for more than 8 hours. We just have to wait for her to get bigger before we can decrease her hours of TPN again.

So I’m now getting ready to go to bed feeling very good about tomorrow, just the idea of being able to take Ellie on a walk in our neighborhood or playing with her in our bed all morning makes the past 8 months completely worthwhile. Just about the time I start feeling optimistic I have to remind myself that this is a marathon not a sprint. We could be the home stretch or more likely only at the midpoint. It is a delicate balance to stay realistic without sounding pessimistic. But it is where Gib and I must balance to not loose our minds in this whole journey.

Here’s to tomorrow.