Leaving Our NICU Home

Henry spent 109 days in the NICU. On our last day there (Thursday), I took some pictures of it. Jeff and I ended up with two cars at the hospital on Thursday morning, because we had arrived at different times on Wednesday. We spent Wednesday "rooming-in" to make sure that we were comfortable with the home monitors. I ended up going back home on Thursday morning at 6AM to walk the dogs. My parents picked me up on their way to the hospital at 8AM.

The NICU at UMC is on the top floor (8th floor). Kind of strange to think that Henry hadn't been off that floor until his hernia surgery on Monday, when he got to see the first floor. The NICU is on the Labor & Delivery floor. To get to it, you have to pass through security at the L&D desk. Then, the NICU has its own security desk. Once you get cleared at the NICU security desk, you go through a door into the washroom.








When my parents and I arrived at the NICU at 8:30AM, Jeff was watching Henry during his car seat trial. Parents have to show that they have a car seat before the child is released from the hospital. And, the baby has to be placed in the car seat for twice the duration of the longest drive it will take (for us, the longest drive that we'll have to do is between our place and one of the doctor's offices on the east side of town, which will take about 45 minutes).








Holly stayed long past her shift to help get the paper work processed to get Henry released from the NICU. Carol was technically Henry's day nurse, but Holly was committed to seeing us off. It took much longer than any of us had anticipated. We had to wait for doctors to end rounds, so that an official order of release could be written up. Then, one of the nurses had to make our appointments for us before we left. Henry has an appointment with his pediatrician (Dr. Moussa) on Monday. We'll also being seeing the GI specialist (Dr. Hassan) to follow-up on his reflux issues, the pulmonary specialist (Kathy, the pulmonary RN) to make sure his oxygen requirements are being met, the eye doctors to make sure that his ROP hasn't progressed post-surgery, and Dr. Cosentino for his hernia surgery follow-up.

Henry is on two reflux medications and vitamins. Luckily, I called Walgreens before leaving the NICU to order his reflux medications. As it turned out, our insurance wasn't going to cover one of them because I guess they don't consider reflux a medical necessity to treat. Frustrating. His reflux isn't just a little problem; for a preemie, it can be a huge problem. Leslie, the NICU pharmacist, ended up changing the medication to one of the meds that Schaller Anderson would cover.

The newborn picture person came up to take Henry's picture. Henry wasn't particularly cooperative. The lady taking the pictures wasn't used to coming into the NICU. She seemed really, really nervous.

We finally packed up around 2PM. We said our goodbyes to the nurses and headed out the door for Henry's new home.