Home

We got to bring Will home yesterday morning. They had us bring a suction machine home to suction out his nose, but other than that, he is good to go!

In the hospital on Tuesday night (if I remember right) they had to put him on a high-flow oxygen machine, which makes it really hard for them to nurse, so they automatically put them on a feeding tube. Since I already had been pumping (because Will had been eating less) they could immediately start feeding him my milk. I guess they just have a standard that they start them out on, because in the morning he was SO fussy and attacking his soother like crazy, and the dietician said we could basically double the amount of food he was getting, which made him a much happier babe. He also lost weight that night, so the doctor said that we might have to supplement feedings, and I told him I had a whole freezer full of milk at home, which he said we could bring in, but then the nurses just laughed because I already had a whole fridge-full at the hospital. I think I left about seven bottles there. Haahaa.

The increased oxygen seemed to be great for him, and Wednesday we spent the entire day slowly decreasing the amount he was on, until we switched him back to the other oxygen machine. They kept all the tubes in for feeding for a little while just to make sure he did well with the switch. Then he was doing so great on such low oxygen that they took out the feeding tubes, the IV in his hand, and just left the oxygen tubes in, but off. He did really well for a few hours, but they ended up having to turn on his oxygen a little bit during the night, and then they turned it off again. Since he had done so well...they let us go home! The doctor said at first that Will was getting worse just because its the normal course of RSV, it usually worsens around the 5th day and it had been day 4, but afterwards the doctor said he thinks that maybe Will just had a mucous plug in his lungs, the high-flow oxygen helped dislodge it, and then he was ok. He said he thought this might be the case because it was unusual for them to improve so quickly, and he had been so stable for so long before getting worse. Who knows, but I am glad he did improve so quickly. Although...its not doing anything for my hours of sleep to be so worried about watching him and making sure he's breathing (especially since my wonderful sister Megan freaked me out with a brain-dead story the other day). It was kind of nice to have the nurses there and the monitors on. But so far, so good.

It is also really nice to have Ruthie home. Thank you SO SO SO much Megan and Jared (and Megan's babysitter) for watching her from Monday to Thursday!!! I bet she had a great time. But she was smiling so big when she saw me and I couldn't believe how big she was and how much she jabbered.  For the most part, she is really happy, and is pretty content to play by herself and carry her toys all over. Now I just wonder what I am going to do with her until the second week of April, when the doctor said we could start going to larger gatherings!?!!?!?