Home at Last!

It's already 12:30 pm a full day after I should have posted this news and I have just now showered and dressed...there must be a new baby at our house.

We were thrilled to welcome McKay home about 2pm yesterday. He was sent home with a bunch of monitoring equipment for his breathing and heart rate and some oxygen to calm fears about his low sats when he's deep sleeping, but we're HOME. His brothers made a poster for the garage door that pushed me to tears when we pulled into the drive way. They have been so tender and cute with him--I am pleasantly surprised considering all we put them through in the name of McKay in the past 11 days. Hopefully they just remember this time as a showering of attention from friends and family (and way too many trips to McDonald's).

I was asked to stay and nurse McKay through our last night at the hospital to make sure he could gain weight nursing exclusively. He came through like a champ, gaining 30 grams our last night there. He did, however, create some excitement that I was sure would prevent us from bringing him home.

We were bunked together in a separate "family room" where I was asked to take care of McKay while the nurses simply monitored his sats in the NICU. About 45 minutes after we went to sleep his nurse came rushing in, flipped on the light and started moving McKay about to make sure he was okay. Apparently the alarms were turned off in our room, but McKay's monitors indicated that his heart had stopped beating. I had my suspicions as McKay looked great to me. I suggested that the leads on the monitors might be malfunctioning, but the nurse said she didn't think so and if it happened again they would have to move McKay back into the NICU nursery. Of course, I didn't sleep much after that as I watched his monitors and stood next to his bedside worried that our departure would be postponed. I prayed and prayed that God would help McKay be healthy enough to leave.

McKay's ECG monitor alarmed two more times and his nurse came in again ready to resuscitate him. Both times I was standing over his crib telling her that I was watching him breath and could feel the heartbeat in his chest. Finally, she changed the leads and the remaining 90 minutes of our first night together were relatively calm.

The next morning the cardiology team huddled as to what to do about McKay's tendency to dip into an undesirable oxygen range when he was deep sleeping. They decided to send us home with oxygen and a saturation monitor. Personally, I am a little relieved to have back up if we need it.

Anyway, we are home. You can expect us to be later than usual, messier than most and sleepier than we'd like, but we are content to be together. In 12 short days McKay has changed our family and our lives in too many ways to explain and probably more ways than even we realize. Your strength, prayers, and many acts of service for our family and especially our boys have meant so much to Matt and me. I could not imagine going through this experience without the love we have felt from so many and the strength we received daily from our loving Heavenly Father.

Before McKay was born there were a thousand reasons I could think of why although I was willing to accept the trial, we did not need this experience. Now, I feel there are a thousand reasons to be thankful to my Heavenly Father for choosing to honor us with this child. His heart may be the one being fixed over the next few years, but I'm sure it's ours that will end up better for it.