So Much To Learn and Do

With Nathan doing very well on less than a liter of oxygen and with the feeding tube question resolved, the only thing we were waiting for now was to hear when we would be able to take Nathan home.  That news came on January 15th: if all went well we would be bringing Nathan home in one week!  They jokingly cautioned us not to say it too loud though or we might jinx it.

The thought of finally bringing Nathan home was both very exciting and completely scary!  There was so much to do and so much to learn before Nathan came home.  We had to learn how to run an oxygen system and a feeding pump.  We also had to learn infant CPR, learn how to give medications, and learn to place the NG tube, and a variety of other odds and ends.  The nurses actually kept a checklist of everything we needed to learn and would mark them off as we learned them. 

In addition to everything we had to do and learn, Nathan also had quite a bit to have done before coming home.  Both a hearing test and an eye exam are standard procedure before being discharged.  A car seat test is also standard procedure.  For the car seat test, the nurse will put your baby in his or her car seat, strap them in, and basically see if they can handle it.  The baby must be able to handle being in the car seat for at least as long as the trip home is going to be.  So Nathan needed to pass the car seat test for at least an hour.

We also hoped to try and clean the house as much as possible before Nathan came home.  And not just a once over, but a good deep cleaning.  We didn't want Nathan to get sick just because we didn't dust the entertainment center or wipe off the counter.

So there was a lot to do in a week.  And thinking about everything all at once was quite overwhelming.  But the nurses were going to guide us through the checklist one-by-one to make sure we got it all in.