Today at rounds I listened very carefully, I knew we were probably headed home soon but will tomorrow be the day? And...they say tomorrow! Yea!!!!!!!!! He's gaining weight well on the 24 calorie breastmilk and hasn't had a serious (non-self-resolving) desat in a bit.
I decide to feed Jonah his medication, the nurses normally do it during their assessments in the morning but didn't today for some reason so they just asked me to when I got a chance. Well, I'm going to need to do it at home, so why not. They take a small syringe and just squirt it in the corner of his mouth a little bit at a time. So I try it, and manage to choke Jonah. Because he's choking and not breathing normally he desats and goes Bradys. Bradycardia is when the heart beats slower than normal and is very common in preemies but Jonah's never had a problem with that, his heart monitor was always one I didn't have to worry about. So three nurses rush in and ask what's happened. I tell them and two of them want to wait for him to self-correct but the other starts getting the oxygen ready. Noooooooo! I know if we go to oxygen we will definitely not be going home tomorrow. Just give him a chance to catch his breath like any other baby! While she's getting the oxygen ready the other two are looking at Jonah in my arms and my favorite 7th floor nurse blows in his face a bit and rubs his chest. He stops Brady'ing and his saturation levels start to pop back up. Ahhhh, no oxygen needed! Now I just have to find out if that was enough to make it so we can't go home. I'm so stupid for choking him, ahhh!
But no, when I speak with the medical student who's coordinating our release :) she says that's fine, he self corrected and didn't need oxygen so we should still be OK to leave tomorrow. She is the one that explains it to the doctor and although the doctor seems a bit more concerned she says to explain the situation in the chart that he was in my arms and only mild stimulation was used. He says normally this is a show stopper but given how it happened it should be OK. Whew!
They tell me that they're sending us home with no monitors or oxygen. I knew there wouldn't be oxygen but I am surprised there won't be any monitors. I'm happy and scared at the same time. So nice to be "tube free" and like a normal kid, but so odd that one day you have to be monitored all the time and the next you don't need them at all. I ask about signs and symptoms I should watch for and the medical student looks at me quizically, "you know what to look for" she says, color of the baby (pink not blue), no retractions (where he breathes hard and sucks in his ribs), temperment. OK, I said, we're ready. She sets up our follow-up appointments, we're to see surgery in a month, the NICU follow-up for developmental delays in 2 months and Jonah's regular pediatrician in a few days. She would prefer I went the day after we get out but Dr. Boettcher says that Monday is fine (we're being released Thursday). We also cover the fact that we'll have an at-home nurse visit a few times a week for a while. OK, OK, OK, as long as we get to go home!
So I call my husband and tell him to take tomorrow off of work, we're headed home! Finally!!!
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