Home

After 11.5 weeks - 81 days, to be exact - Ayden has come home.  He was discharged from the hospital at about 2 p.m. this afternoon.  He has had a very big (and busy) day.  The pacing wires, which have been there since his surgery way back in April, were pulled this morning.  The PICC line came out.  He was disconnected from his heart and oxygen level monitors.  For the first time in his life, he is completely cordless, except for his feeding tube, which is only hooked up to something when he's getting food. (Well, he is also connected to an apnea machine overnight).  The last thing we did before we left was weigh him.  He's now up to 4.6 kilos, or 10.12 lbs.

Being home with him is both exciting and terrifying.  We will probably live in a constant state of semi-fear that something will happen while he's here and we won't be able to get something done about it in time.  I will be praying for nothing like that to occur and, if it does, that we have early warning signs like we did last time.

As I type this, he is sleeping peacefully.  I think the major adjustments will be made by Allison and I.  For almost 12 weeks, we've constantly had numbers on a monitor we could look at to let us know if he is okay/not okay/awake/asleep/etc.  Not anymore.  It was a blessing and a curse that eventually became a crutch.  Now we are off it, cold turkey.  Peace of mind will likely be hard to come by for a while.

Not suprisingly, many of his girlfriends were on hand to send him off.  They each got some last minute Ayden Time in before we left. (Ayden has been dealing with sedative withdrawal; I think Anna will now be facing Ayden withdrawal.)