Officially discharged!

Well, this morning the doc came in and said I'm free to be discharged. She came back a little while later to take my staples out (didn't hurt at all, just little pinches) and replaced them with little strips of tape. It's MUCH more comfortable this way. It's still weird to me to think that they stapled my tummy shut like I'm a stack of papers... I'm officially not a patient, but am able to stay at the hospital on boarder status. Basically it means that I'm responsible for my own meals and taking my medications, and the nursing staff doesn't check on me anymore. They are here if I need something, but won't be waking me up for vitals (YEAY!!), etc. They made sure I passed the "stair test," since they know our apartment is one floor up, and it was no big deal at all. Some friends were visiting at the time, and came with me to cheer me on. I really wanted to do the Rocky dance at the top, but thought jumping up and down would be taking things a *little* bit too far. No need to end a good thing with head trauma. :)

Titus is doing well, and eating like a fiend. He's up to 21 mL this evening and taking it like a champ. This morning after he ate, I was holding him on my skin on my chest and he started getting fussy, which is unusual when I hold him like that because he usually is perfectly content and snuggly. Then I felt the tell-tale bubbles in his diaper, and sure enough, after a few minutes of fussing, he unloaded. :) Both he and I have well-functioning GI tracts now, praise God! After I changed the diaper, he was WIDE awake and perfectly content. He was awake and alert for a good 10 or 15 minutes, which was really fun to see him looking around and taking in his surroundings. I have some video of it that I hope to get loaded on our youtube site this next week. He has so much personality in such a small package! One of the neonatologists was there while he was awake, and she was very impressed with how alert he was. She mentioned how well he's doing and said he's had two things in his favor: the steroids he received in utero right when I got to the hospital two 1/2 weeks ago (almost 3!), and she said when the water breaks early it puts the baby under a bit of stress (not distress), and kind of makes their systems kick it up a notch. Pretty cool. The only slight downer was that his bili levels are up a little bit again, so he's back to perfecting his tan. He's really going to make me look like a ghost now!

Nick's mom, Sue got here today, and got to meet Titus, which was a wonderful thing. Stella and Ezra are excited to see her, too, and they all came for dinner (thanks, Wendy!) at the hospital. Ezra got to meet his baby brother for the first time, and was mesmerized by him. He said, "Hi, baby Titus!" It was super cute. I have video of that, too. Then it was Stella's turn, and she got to hold Titus' hand and touch his really soft hair. She LOVED it and was talking to her baby brother a bit while she held his hand. It was very sweet. Then Grandma Sue got to go in and say good-night, and Ezra started crying because he wanted to see baby Titus again, too. :) There was no way I was telling him no.

I've had a great time visiting Titus and being able to get to know the nurses a bit as well. They come from all over the US and have been all over the world. There's also another baby, Titus' neighbor, who was born yesterday. The mom was also in the antepartum ward, so it will be fun to share our experiences together. They seem like a very nice family, and have two other children, girls ages 4 and 2 1/2.

I hope you're all having a wonderful (for some of you holiday) weekend and will keep you updated!