Hayden's Home from the Hospital

As you can see she is pretty excited about it!!

Matt stayed at the hospital Thursday night and at 4:30 Friday morning the nurse came in and told Matt that Hayden was being transferred to a step down unit. So when I got there Friday morning I was in for a bit of a surprise. Then to top it all off, that morning we had a new group of doctors round on her and they said that if she kept her oxygen levels up (she had been taken off oxygen about an hour previous) that she would be able to go home that day. When they first said that, I was in shock. There is no way that my baby was ready to go home. Who were they to pronounce that she was ready when they just saw her for the first time and had no idea where she had been? But after posting my fear on Facebook and having so many of my family and friends saying they had had the same concerns when they took their own children home from the hospital and everything turned out just fine, I started feeling more at ease. I also realized my fear was somewhat selfish. I began to rely so much on those monitors that let me know exactly where she was at. Would I be safe with her if I didn't have those monitors? A friend who used to be in our ward wrote a comment that was EXACTLY what was going on in my mind, "I know it's scary taking her home -- you've probably grown dependent on trusting the doctors and the monitors to tell you she's breathing ok and that her heart rate is good, etc. I remember wishing I had a screen telling me his oxygen levels just to make me feel sure. Trust the inspiration you've received so far to keep her safe. You've had extra help and you will continue to. You are in our prayers (and many others)!" I am so VERY GRATEFUL for all these comments and prayers that have and will continue to buoy us up.

So now we are home and things are gradually getting better. She refused to nurse for the first few feedings so I pumped and bottle fed. Then she could not get into a deep sleep. She would sleep for 5 - 15 minutes and then wake up. I was so worried about all the adjusting that was going to have to happen. Then I wasn't producing as much milk as she was wanting. It was hard to keep up on my pumping and eating while she was in the hospital plus combined with all the stress my milk level dropped a bit. But today (Sunday) has already shown improvement in every aspect. Once again, I am sure this is because of all the precious prayers that have been said on our behalf. We aren't out of the woods, but things are steadily getting better.

We are still giving her breathing treatments and medications.

Grandma Bonnie gets some playing time in with her. It has been so WONDERFUL having grandma here to help with Carter. Now that Hayden is home she gets to play with our fun, alert baby. When she was out right after I had Hayden, she was still sleeping most of the day and wasn't smiling yet or anything.

Her hair is curly when it is wet so we decided to try putting gel in it today to see if it would stay curly. And it did! Matt, Carter and I all have very straight hair so it was a shock to us to have a baby with curly hair.

Who would have thought breathing treatments would put her to sleep? She is a pretty chill girl.

Another way we knew Heavenly Father was looking out for us by sending Hayden home Friday afternoon was as we were leaving the hospital it was starting to snow big time. By Saturday morning we had 2 feet of snow and there was no leaving the house to go anywhere! None of our neighborhood streets were plowed until today (and that was only very few of them). We have some pretty scary hills so there would not have been any trips to the hospital to see Hayden for whoever slept at the house and no way to get her home if she was discharged.

We definitely took advantage of the snow and had a good time. This is Grandma Bon with Carter. The snow was clear up to the slide.

I love those red cheeks. And notice the shoveled snow is clear up to Matt's waistline.

Our buddy Jake trying to shovel his car out. Needless to say, it took a LONG time!

The snow in our back yard.

That is our mountain of snow after Matt shoveled our walks. Holy Smokes. And if any of you wondered, no the mailman did not come on Saturday. I know they say they come in rain, sleet and snow, but I guess 2 feet of snow is where they draw the line.