Words with pictures to follow

Monday, September 21 is another graduation day. It was a few months ago that I wrote about the first of hopefully many graduation days when we were sent home from CHoP. Today is another one of those. As I make this blog entry just to my right in her little red carseat (the carseat seems huge, but it's little) is my baby Ellen. She was discharged this afternoon after only 19 days in the hospital. This morning the nurse said it was possible she would go home and that we'd probably know by noon. Noon came and went and we had no phone call from the hospital. We called to see what was up and the nurse said the doctor was in at that very moment reading Ellen's charts. She would call as soon as she knew. An hour later the phone still had not rung. So we called them (again). The doctor had read her charts and then went to lunch. Apparently he did not know we were on the phone waiting to hear the verdict. Or he was just simply not that anxious about it. Either way, he left us in the dark. We planned to go for the 4 PM feeding anyway, and the nurse told us to bring our equipment in just in case. As soon as we walked in the door at 3:30 she said that we were headed home! So after all the paperwork, a little dress up in the clothes that I bought for her just today, and her 4:00 meal, she was loaded up (all 4 pounds, 7 ounces of her), strapped in, and her first taste of freedom was upon her. She came home with an Apnea monitor (as mentioned in an earlier post) and will have a checkup on that in one month, if not before, depending on how much she makes the alarm go off. And she has an eye checkup and an ear checkup and a heart checkup...phew. I'm sure there are more but all we need to know right now is that baby is home. Thank you God!

It is still somewhat bittersweet, knowing that we had been preparing for a double graduation today. And it is still at times difficult for us to know how to deal with both joy and sorrow at the same time. But right now, it's a contented sigh that you hear - both from the kitchen table and the kitchen chair. I'm sure there will be many more.