Home Sweet Home

What a great New Year's Eve present.  After an extended stay at the "Bethesda Inn" (seriously, that's what they call it for parents who get discharged before their newborn but stay over in the room waiting for the little one to get released) we finally headed home late Saturday (New Year's Eve) night.  All day Saturday they were telling us that you might get to go home if your bilirubin levels dropped enough, but all day long it also seemed like they wanted you to get one more lab drawn or to make it through one more treatment.  Mommy was having a rough go of it, but thankfully nana and papa came up to the hospital to just hang out.  It was so nice to have someone there and to get a little distraction from the fact that Daddy & I were basically staring at you and trying to decide if you looked any less yellow!  So, we ate pizza Saturday afternoon, and watched football (Daddy was happy the UC game was on and at least we had cable at the hospital!) and waited.  You were snuggled with your bilirubin blanket (I think that's what they called it) and looked a bit like a glow worm or ET - hehe.

Then later Saturday eve we got the "all clear" from the nurses that you were allowed to come home.  This is the news we'd been hoping for all day and we had tried to pack things up in advance - but boy we had a lot of stuff at the hospital! I'll never forget how excited I was when the nurses gave us the green light though.  Nana and papa were still at the hospital keeping us company and we all jumped out of our seats and snapped into action.  Daddy and papa made a trip to the car to carry down all of our stuff then we got you ready to go.  It was kind of surreal getting you dressed in real clothes (you had a cute outfit from Grandma Jayne).  I don't think you had any idea what was going on but Daddy and I sure were excited.

So we started the ride home (Daddy drive extra slow) and rang in the new year somewhere between a midnight feeding and napping. 

Definitely not the most traditional new years eve celebration we've ever had, but boy was it special for us.  We're so glad you're finally home Alice and we can't wait to start our new life as a family.