The Hoffmans: Heading home

Madi was discharged on Monday, January 7th. We still had to go through a 90 minute car seat test (the babies have to sit in the car seats for 90 minutes without having a Brady (heart rate drop) or disruptions in their breathing), so I still wasn't sure if I was leaving with Madi or not. After the first 20 minutes of watching her in the car seat, I knew I had to leave. I was watching the monitors like a hawk and over analyzing every blip on them. I went to lunch...this might seem cold hearted, but I was a nervous wreck and seeing that I had no fingernails left to speak of, I thought I would go downstairs and eat something else :-) When I returned, I was told she passed. My nugget was ready to go home!

I then had to sit through her final blood test and her RSV shot. I really pushed for her to get this shot because we had 6 outbreaks of RSV, a highly contagious virus that can be fatal to infants. In fact, as I write this, my friend in NY has her two twin boys (born at 35 weeks gestational age) in the PICU on respirators because they caught RSV. With Makaela and Mia in daycare, they are at greater risk for catching it which puts Madi at risk. Add me being a teacher to the mix and Madi's risk goes up even further. Problem is, insurance companies only pay for it if the baby is younger than 32 weeks g.a. because the shot is $1750 a round and there are three shots in the series. Madi's original doctor said we didn't need it, we just needed to be diligent, but the NICU nurse helped me persuade the discharging doctor to sign off on the shot and he did.

Matt fed her one more meal to get her all drowsy for the car ride and then we changed her into her "going home" outfit. I had to drive home by myself (once again, a total nervous wreck not being able to watch her every move), but we managed. Due to the time, Matt had to pick up the other girls. The girls were so excited to see her, but we couldn't let them get too close because the doctor has warned us about exposing her to germs. People have to change into clean clothes and wash up before going near her, so we now have clean PJs in the laundry room for the girls to change into before going near their sister.