We Are Home!

Goodbye hospital and hello home! Yes we said this over three weeks ago and it is still hard to believe. I would have written sooner if only all the things I think of writing during feeding time could somehow type themselves. Now that I think of it, I'm sure I could do that with Siri but my sleep-deprived brain didn't get to that thought until just now. I'll experiement soon with Siri!

     I couldn't have been happier to finally get all of us under our roof. We were welcomed home by balloons and porch decorations from Gram and the Cuccias and a homecooked meal by my mom. Then we plunged into baby at home life. It was funny to see the things we felt very comfortable with from our time at the hospital and the things we didn't have a clue about. On the clueless side - how does the bottle warmer work?? (Thankfully, between two granddads they figured it out pretty quickly.) Then the hospital trained side of us was our little three hour schedule of temperature, diaper, feeding, pump and repeat. Charlie did this well at the hospital but at home it lasted about three days and he decided that wasn't going to be the exact schedule any more. Ben and I were pretty much in agreement with him on this as waking him in the middle of the night to try to force a feeding just seemed wrong. We all adjusted to feeding him 'on demand' and what do you know, it settled into basically a three hour schedule.

    The first two weeks at home were hard, really hard. I wish I could just say it has been all bliss but it's not. As much as I'm in love with Charlie, he is hard work. (this is the point where all parents, say duh, it's just beginning!) I'm so glad we had my parents in town for those two weeks as they helped fill in all the gaps of work that Ben and I were not getting to - laundry, cooking, gadget tinkering, groceries and the list goes on. They were also both excellent Charlie holders at any given moment so I could slip away for a power nap here and there.

   It was strange being home because it was such a different stress than our time at the hospital. We still had the worries about his health and weight gain but now we also had to run the show without our nurses and doctors there 24/7. The biggest challenge at home has been his feeding. When Charlie came home he wasn't ready to do a full feeding from nursing, so I would nurse him, give him the rest from a bottle and then need to pump to keep up my milk supply. It's called triple feeding and it's not pretty. As a new parent, feeding time consumes most of your time but this felt like it took over all hours of the day. Triple feeding could easily take an hour and a half to two hours of our roughly every three hour feeding. It was so different than what my full-term baby momma friends had to do that it was hard to get advice. Thankfully, I reached out to a few preemie moms I know (lifesavers!) and got some good encouragement and advice. I also learned about some facebook pages for preemie moms which helped with ideas.

 

    Charlie loves to cuddle and makes lots of little noises - little baby cooes and grunts and sighs. Holding him and letting him snuggle in is the best part of the day right now. He really is a good baby and only gets fussy when he decides he's hungry - then he goes from calmest baby ever to being very hangry and loud in about three seconds. We have had the chance to take some walks in the neighborhood and head to a few patios for dinner. Charlie has enjoyed these outings so much they usually put him right to sleep.

     There was also a lot of advice coming in from all sides. I sought out quite a bit of advice but it still can get overwhelming when ideas starts conflicting. We left Charlie's first peditrician appointment and both our heads were spinning because lots of her directions conflicted with what the doctors had been telling us for a month at the hospital. Finally on about day 14 or 15 home, I think we really began feeling comfortable with putting ideas and opinions together into what works for us. About that time we also got Charlie transitioned from the triple feeding to full nursing and a bottle feeding instead when we needed it. This was the best news of the month!!
 

We have had lots of great visitors this month. I didn't get photos of everyone but did my best. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to meet Charlie!

 

 

 

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