Since it’s been MONTHS since I’ve had time to write, I’m going to fast forward things a bit. Luna Bell went off the C-pap and onto “high flow” soon after being moved to the less critical NICU. And one morning, when nurse went into her room and the high flow nasal cannula was off her nose for the millionth time that day and probably had been off for a while, they left it off, then tested her back on the high flow and her oxygen levels were still perfect, so one glorious night, they took her off the air support and we finally got to see my beautiful girl’s face, clear of respiratory support for the first time. It was then that they decided to move her to the “medical unit”. She was there for a week or so before they said, let’s get her ready to go home. I listened carefully to EVERYTHING, and we started getting ourselves mentally ready for our little girl to come home.
The reality of Luna Bell actually coming home to live with us, for us to take care of her, ALL the time, was almost overwhelming. Don’t get me wrong, the excitement was off the charts, but the idea of bringing home our little girl to live with ya 24/7 365 was a lot to get our heads around. But we buckled down and got things in place and soon we had a meeting with doctors and decided that our girl was coming home on March 15th, 3 days before she was to turn 4 months. She would still be on a feeding tube, and she would need lots of check ups with Pulmnonolgy as well as in home Physical Therapy to help her make up for what she had missed learning to do naturally over the past 4 months in a hospital bed.
The big day came and we left the hospital looking over our shoulders to see if anyone was chasing us to say “wait! We made a mistake! She’s not ready to go home yet!” But we made it to the car, got her and al of her stuff in the car and drove home more carefully than I’ve ever driven before. I kept looking in the rear view mirror at Kevin and our miracle baby, Luna Bell, and tried not to cry. It was finally happening, we were finally going home as a family. It was everything I had dreamed of for nearly a year now, and especially the past 4 months.
The fear that I’m sure all new parents feel when they took their newborn home seemed to be on 11 for us. She had made it this far, would one or both of us do something stupid to send her back to the hospital or even worse?
We arrived at home and Kevin played his guitar for her-something he had wanted to do for 4 months. I got her things all set up in our room so she would be all cozy. After taking pictures of her and holding her and showing her outside, we finally all went to sleep that night. Luna Bell slept in her Dock a Tot between us and we woke up many times in the night to make sure she was ok. That she was breathing. That she was comfortable. Each time we would catch each other’s eye and breath and whisper “ I can’t believe she’s finally home. I’m so happy!”
Our world had completely changed once again. Nearly a year before, my pregnancy was about to begin. And now, our beautiful, perfect girl was home with us. She was ours. We could hold her anytime we wanted. We could take her places with us. We didn’t have to go “visit” our daughter anymore. She was home. Life was good and how it was meant to be. But now, to catch up on all the things we had missed, if felt like we needed to push fast forward. .
LUNAR PHASES 