Home: Day 3

Wow.  This post will be point form because Murphy's law has taken over our house so I may or may not get to finish...

• Ryan is settling in nicely
• Leaving the hospital was much more emotional than I thought.  I've been re-affirmed about how truly amazing our nurses were
• Sadie says, "Ryan's home!" multiple times a day
• He sleeps a lot
• He is still figuring out how to take bottles
• We have to manage his feeding tube by listening to his belly and "injecting" a pop of air into it to ensure it's properly placed before we give him any food/meds through the tube.
• His oxygen tubing is 50 feet long
• He is connected to a monitor that occasionally scares the @#*( out of us during the night for no reason but I'm afraid to turn it off because something might be 'real' one tme
• Sadie is very happy that I'm home
• She is the typical older sister.  One minute wants lots of hugs, next minute wants nothing to do with him... mostly the first
• We feel lucky, stressed, happy, sad, frustrated, confused, hesitantly optimistic, exhausted, energetic, grateful... all at the same time
• We've had visits from a nurse, a respiratory therapist, a physiotherapist, next week a dietician, a trip back to Sinai for eye exam, a pediatrician appt, all in less than a week
• The nurse was very impressed with Ryan and us - that means we may have been taught too well, so we may not qualify for the community care access after about a week.... eek.  I tried to explain that we're doing well because Scott is off and that next week when I'm on my own the picture may look a little different
• To hire a nurse is approx $120 for 3 hours.  It's an expensive nap, but might be necessary in the future
• I'm already making my list of things to bring to our appointment on Monday
• Ryan enjoys sunlight and fresh air.
• He seems to be much more content at home
• He hasn't pooped since Wednesday
• He has a lot of medication that is actually somewhat ok to manage
• There is a lot of paperwork that we have to deal with
• Oxygen machinery is intimidating.  Very intimidating. No candles, no smoking, no shocks in the winter, weekly visits to fill the liquid oxygen tank
• It's hard to be upfront with people about hand hygiene around Ryan.  I asked the physiotherapist to remove her coat when she came inside and she looked at me like I was from Mars.  Dude. How often do you wash your coat. 
• The unknown is scary.  Ryan's been sleeping so much during the day, we may be in for an awake night - thus far he's had a good day/night schedule.
• I'm scared of cold and flu season
• I really want to post some pictures but just don't have time
• If I'm not with one kid, I'm with the other, if I'm not with a kid I'm pumping, if I'm not pumping I'm preparing milk or meds for upcoming feeds, If I'm not doing that I'm washing said pumping equipment or bottles or whatever.  Oh and sometimes we eat, play, walk, tidy.... so when people say I should take time for myself to get a massage.... I don't know how to answer them. Oh and Scott is doing everything else in between... bills,one kid/other kid, cleaning organizing, reminding me to eat
• I thought it was hard when Sadie came home.  Perspective is a funny thing.  
• It's weird to be physically recovered and have a newborn. I would never wish this on anyone, but not having crazy raging hormones (just the occasional crazy rage) or a physical recovery to deal with makes this a whole lot more manageable
• Our horseshoe that lives at our front door has apparently been upside down for the past year... I learned today that it means our luck fell out.  My sister turned it the right way up today... perhaps that's why all this happened.  Who knew!

Ok.  That's good for now.  Supposed to sleep when the baby sleeps right?  Hard part is it takes me like an hour to fall asleep and he's due to eat in an hour.