Growing up I looked forward to St. Patrick’s Day. My brothers and I would make elaborate leprechaun traps and imagine what it would be like to catch one. We would wake up to gold coins and fool’s gold and other treats and goodies scattered around our bedroom. But St. Patrick’s Day has a whole new significance for me now.
On March 17, 2017, after 39 days in the NICU, Griffin came home from the hospital. It was like Christmas. We spent the night before cleaning the house and getting to bed early. We called the NICU that night to check up on him before going to bed. I think I was expecting to be told there was a setback. He’d struggled with his car seat test, and they’d had some technical difficulties. He’d never been that close to coming home, but several times we’d thought things were getting better only to have more problems.
We told very few people he would be coming home, mostly because I didn’t know what might change. We walked out the door that morning to some cute St. Patrick’s Day cookies from our neighbors. We dropped our two-year-old off with my parents and headed to the hospital. I don’t remember many other details of the morning.
The NICU nurses had dressed him in the most green outfit they could find. Looking back I think maybe we should have dressed him in his own clothes while he was in the hospital. But to be honest, I wanted to be the one to dress him in his real clothes. I wanted to be the one to put him in the cute shamrock jammies my sister bought him for the holiday.
As discharge tends to go, it took forever. The paperwork, talking to all the doctors, packing up all of his stuff, getting his extra breast milk from the milk room… Not only was I anxious to get him home, but I had to pump on schedule and he was on a g-tube. His feeds had to be prepped and given at certain times. I waited as long as I could before heading to the pumping room one last time. It was a little bittersweet. Pumping was the main thing I’d been able to do for him, and I’d actually enjoyed taking breaks in the pumping room, away from the craziness in the room Griffin shared with three other babies.
As for the g-tube, I was so, so nervous. I’d had very little practice. The nurses let me do a little, but they basically told me it was super easy and I’d have a different pump at home anyway. I hadn’t roomed in (though I probably should have) because I was trying to keep things as normal as possible for my toddler and because my husband had to work. But I had so much paperwork with all kinds of numbers I could call, plus our home health company was delivering supplies that night and sending someone the next day.
My husband and I snuggled Griffin and talked and waited. The nurse finally sent my husband down to get the car and walked me down to the front door. I remember him fussing in his car seat and her rocking the seat with her foot while we waited. I remember thinking that was his first time outside and not in an incubator on a stretcher for transport.
I rode in the backseat with my toddler’s car seat between me and Griffin. Although I have always been terrified of talking on the phone, I’d learned to answer whenever it rang. We’d barely left the hospital when I got a phone call from the home health company about our supplies, if I remember correctly. My husband dropped us off at home and headed to get our toddler. You know, pumping life. Plus, fewer germs and less overwhelming for Griffin.
I sat on the recliner in our kitchen (put there for convenience after my c-section) and enjoyed the silence. My baby was finally home. No monitors, no nurses, no wires, no Ziploc for my phone. I was really alone with my baby for the first time in his life.
March 17th was also the day my boys finally met. Because Sawyer was two and because it was flu season, he wasn’t allowed in the NICU at all. To be honest, I think the time Griffin was in the NICU helped the transition to him having a little brother. He saw pictures, talked about him, and stayed in the hallway outside of the NICU while we visited Griffin.
Like any mom of multiple children, I was excited for their first meeting. It wasn’t how I originally expected it to be, but it was so special. It was just our family, in our own home.
It didn’t take me long to figure out the feeding pump, the g-tube care, or the fortified breast milk prep. I spent that first evening rocking my baby in my own rocking chair in my own home. I dressed him in his own clothes. I changed his diaper and threw it away without having to weigh it. It was a little unsettling not being able to look up and see his stats, but it was a relief to not have false alarms constantly going off.
That first night was so rough. I kept reminding myself how grateful I was that he was home, because I was. But having a new baby at home is hard. On top of that, with my oldest I’d just nurse him when he woke up in the middle of the night. Griffin was 100% tube fed. All he could have orally was his binki. While he was fed into his stomach all night long, it was hard to comfort him without being able to feed him myself. After about a week, he slept through the night no problem!
Fun fact: I found out I was pregnant with Griffin on Father’s Day in 2016. He came home from the hospital on St. Patrick’s Day in 2017. It’s kind of cool how things happened on holidays.
