T-1 Day Til Discharge

Wow, this is it.  We are rooming in right now, and so far we're having fun being on our own. It's strange being in a room that is almost an exact replica to the rooms I stayed in on hospitalized bedrest. Little did I know at the time that I'd come full circle with a sweet baby in the room with me! Oh how long ago that was!  Rooming in is great.  I LOVE not having Joshua hooked up to the monitor.  No annoying cords to keep track of, and even better, no alarms going off for no reason every few minutes. 

Joshua had another great day today.  He wasn't as interested in nursing as he was yesterday, but he took a full bottle with each feed.  He is eating and gaining weight like a champ. He gained another 40 grams today, so he's up to 6 lbs 8 oz now.

I finished stringing Joshua's Beads of Courage today.  It's the coolest deal for kids in the hospital. He gets a new bead for various things such as each day in the hospital, x-rays, blood draws, procedures, transfusions, etc.  I must say, he collection of beads is pretty brag worthy, after all he has been through. The nurses were pretty impressed.  It's a great keepsake to keep track of what happened each day in the NICU.

"Bye bye, NICU!"

Joshua went through five journals to earn all these beads, proudly on display.

Each check mark earns a bead.  Each column is a day.

Today, Joshua passed one of his final exams, the 90 minute car seat trial. That overachiever, he fell asleep and stayed in for an extra hour, to make it 2.5 hrs. We had to fill in space with rolled blankets to make him fit.

The view from our room. Pikes Peak is snow capped on the right. The absolute best view was seeing Jeremiah and James walking in to visit us.

Memorial Hospital For Children, you've been good to us.  Our home away from home.