Day 98

Well we did it and Alice is finally at home. Yesterday was a bit of a whirlwind. I was at the hospital at 8:30am and 12:00pm to give Alice her last feeds at the hospital. In between these times was at Park Royal doing some shopping (that I had been procrastinating on but realizing that my time was going to disappear, thought I'd better get on it), including buying diapers at London Drugs!

Picked Max up at daycare at 3:00pm so that he would be with us when we brought Alice home. At the hospital at 3:30pm and home by 4:00pm. Whew!

Alice has come home on renidadin (not sure of that's the correct spelling) but what it helps is to reduce the acidity and helps decrease and reflux issues she may be having. And Alice is also taking D-Drops and Iron (typical for any newborn leaving the hospital and coming home). Her weight is just under 7 pounds upon leaving the hospital - which means she gained 5 pounds over the last 14 weeks.

Alice had her final head ultrasound yesterday as well, and all is good with it.

The only thing we have to be careful of over the next 6 weeks is to ensure she doesn't get RSV (Respiratory Synctial Virus). It's the most common respiratory infection during childhood - most kids have already and their first infection with RSV by their 3rd birthday. Normally occurs January to April. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between a mild case of RSV and the common cold. RSV is spread by droplets on the hands after someone sneezes or coughs. Wash your hands to prevent spreading it. Babies born premature are at risk for serious infection. Alice is getting the medicine to prevent her from getting RSV - she had one shot on January 9th and a second shot due on or around February 9th.

Last night was a great night - the fact that Alice has been "trained" at the nursery made things easier than bringing home a babe straight from the womb. She's being breast fed and then when she runs out of steam, we're topping her up with a bottle of breast milk (less energy required to drink from the bottle). With all this food she last 4 hours between feeds. So we had a 7:30pm, 11:30pm, 3:30am and then woke her at 7:30am this morning. And the day has followed the same schedule as well. Hopefully we can keep it up (for a while at least)!

Max is doing well and is happy to be sharing his room with Alice. We are giving him some space and trying (as hard as we can) to be more lenient than normal so that he doesn't feel like he's being pushed back in the line.

Here's some photos from yesterday. I will continue to update the blog - but probably not as much as I have over the last few months. Thanks to everyone for your support. It's meant so much to us to have you all in our lives and thinking of us and pulling for Alice over the last few months. It really, really means a lot to us.

Lots of love,

Scott, Pat, Max, Alice & Porto

xoxoxoxo

Tiny little girl in a big car seat!

Family photo (without Max as he was watching Treehouse and couldn't be disturbed).

Max is finally a big brother - and he sat by her side for quite a while last night. Either reading a book, playing the ukelele, changing her blankets and making sure she was alright.