NICU discharge day - June 16

Keith and I woke up on June 16th, both excited and very nervous about the prospect of little B coming home with us that day. Mostly excited, I think. We packed up the car seat, and headed to the NICU. When we arrived, Beckett's nurse told us that he had gained a satisfactory amount of weight and the doctors had agreed that today would be discharge day, as long as we were feeling comfortable with it. Keith and I felt that we had learned what we needed to know, and that bringing him home would be the best thing for Beckett's recovery. We just had to wait for the neonatologist to do an exam and issue the discharge papers. 

While we waited, the nurse went over the discharge checklist. Most items on the list were fairly straightforward, others not so much in our case. One of the discussion points was: if baby shows signs of significant pain, bring him back to hospital. The nurse asked us if we felt comfortable with this. Our honest response was: what signs do we look for? During his 22 day stay in the NICU, being poked, prodded, surgically repaired, etc., etc., Beckett had still not once cried. The nurse said that they normally would look for excessive crying. Helpful. We asked what they would look for in the instance that a baby does not or cannot cry. She said that they would watch his heart rate on the monitor. Another helpful tip - because of course we would have him connected to a heart rate monitor 24/7 at home... Obviously, none of these responses were intended to be unhelpful, but we proceeded to check that box without really knowing what to look for with Beckett specifically, hopeful that we wouldn't need to know the signs of excessive pain in the near future at any rate.

Prior to Beckett's birth, I had a number of people recollect what it's like going home from the hospital with a newborn baby. You're suddenly responsible with the life of a tiny human, with no instruction manual! In some ways this was true for us too, but in other ways, he came with very specific instructions: 

• Feed 77 mL (170 mL/kg/day) of expressed breast milk by NG every 3 hours. Attempt SINC feeding simultaneously (...like we were going home with 5 sets of extra hands)
• Use peri bottle for cleaning of dirty diapers. DO NOT WIPE
• Do not submerge baby in bath until 6 weeks post surgery
• Make sure your calendar is up to date with the many follow up and specialist appointments scheduled in the coming weeks

The nurse disconnected all of Beckett's monitors in the morning, which gave us a few hours to get used to a Beckett without alarms and beeping. We could also suddenly carry him further than 3 feet from his crib, which seemed quite adventurous. Around noon, the neonatologist did her exam of Beckett and was happy with how he was doing, how much he weighed, and felt satisfied that his parents would be competent enough to keep him alive at home. Keith and I were as ready as we could be, so we packed up Beckett into his car seat and said our goodbyes to all the amazing NICU staff that had been such an important part of all of our lives for the last 22 days.