Aidan's first days home

Denyse and I have now survived 4 days on our own with Aidan. He was very fussy the first night, and we got very little sleep. Dr Kaempf told us it can take up to 2 weeks for NICU babies to fully settle in at home. The NICU is a very noisy and bright place (24/7), very different from home.

Thinking back to Saturday, it was very emotional leaving the hospital for both of us. 62 days visiting Aidan in the NICU, 93 straight days at the hospital for Denyse and I, 106 days of roller coaster emotions since Denyse's water broke. Everything we went through to get to that point, going all the way back over the last 3-4 years, came back to us all at once while we were leaving.

We have been very busy since Saturday. Aidan has taken his first 2 road trips (back to the hospital of all places...) for a Postpartum Center appointment, and for his first visit to the pediatrician. It take 2 people to transport Aidan, with him in his car seat, a diaper bag, his portable oxygen tank, and his heart/apnea monitor. Back a month ago, we couldn't wait until we had a "wireless baby", without all the tubes and cables on him. Well, we didn't quite get a wireless baby yet, but at least now he's portable.

Some pictures of our first few days.















Gotta love the hat!



And this one too.



Aidan's first trip to the Pediatrician:







During the visit, we ran an oximetry test on Aidan. We put a pulse oximeter on him and removed his oxygen. Then the doctor left Denyse and I to record what his saturation levels did over the next 30 minutes. We wanted to simulate normal activity, so rather than let Aidan just lay there, we did normal stuff like hold, feed and burp him.

His levels started at 98. At first he stayed mostly in the 90s. He dipped into the low 80s 2 times during burping, and fussing from gas, and both times he recovered on his own to the low 90s. Once when he got the hiccups, and got especially fussy, he dipped to 75. I started to get nervous when this happened and began to prepare to turn his oxygen back on. We'd seen plenty of bad desaturations in the NICU. But this time he also recovered on his own back to 90. After this, he bounced between 85 and 93 for the last 10 minutes of the test.

Aidan did pretty well, and the doctor now has a good baseline for him. I was impressed. If we would have tried this 2-3 weeks ago, Aidan would have spiraled into the 60s or 50s and would never have recovered without extra oxygen. He definitely still needs a little extra oxygen, but he continues to improve.

Burp time...



Yes this is the same scale as they had in the NICU.



They rent these at the Postpartum Center. We decided it would be helpful to know how much Aidan eats during breast feeding. And we can still weigh him when we want to make sure he is getting enough calories and is still growing. On Wednesday, Aidan is 2604 grams (5 lbs 11.8 oz). He's well on his way to making it to 6 pounds by Sunday, which keeps him on the same growth rate as before he left the hospital.

What's that on the scale...



Yes Lee, I did zero-out the scale correctly, and set this diaper back on the scale *after* the weight was recorded. Watching the nurses in the NICU trained us well :)

Grandma Smith got to hold Aidan for the very first time today.



It's been fun and tiring, and the time flies by for us now.