"Now I want you to click your heels together three times and say, “There’s no place like….”

Posted Aug 14, 2009 9:31pm….”The NICU at Westchester Medical Center!”

No wait, that’s not how it goes….

HOME! HOME! HOME! There’s no place like HOME! And that’s exactly where Sarai is right now!

Almost two months after my first hospitalization, just about 6 weeks in the NICU, at 5 weeks and 5 days old, on a Friday afternoon during rush hour on Aug. 14, 2009…. Sarai was finally discharged from the hospital.

We got there today totally not expecting it. I was afraid to even hope for Monday. But the doctors decided that with a pulse oximeter and some oxygen just in case, we could come home and here we are. Sarai has enough equipment with her that we might just as well be in the NICU, but that’s fine by me. She’s on prilosec and caffeine. We give them to her once a day. So far we’ve had her on the oximeter to monitor the de-sats and haven’t even bothered with the apnea monitor. Honestly, the oximeter goes off enough that we have to check her every 5 minutes anyway, so the apnea monitor just feels like overkill. We’ll see. Her first appointment with the pediatrician is tomorrow morning and we have lots more follow ups in the next month.

AH! Where else can I begin? I can’t believe she’s here, I’m totally in shock. It’s about 10 o’clock right now, the usual time I write the blog and I’m already SO much more exhausted than usual. I think my heart has been racing all day.

Before we even got to the hospital my day was off to a good start though. I kept calling around trying to find someone with information about Duke and cord blood. I called a number at Duke and was transferred to the right office! They took Sarai’s info and asked that the cord blood report be sent to them for evaluation. They weren’t sure if she’d qualify for the study, but they’re looking into it. I just don’t know why they wouldn’t try it. Be prepared, we may have to start a giant e-mail campaign to get Sarai into this study! It might be a few weeks before I hear back from them. I’ll let you know!

John and Sara came over to drop off some very thoughtful, and beautiful, gifts! Thank you so much, and to Ajene too! Sarai is such a lucky girl, and we are such a lucky family!

We’re settling in. Mom is here, thank goodness, and has been a big help already. I woudn’t be able to update the blog without her here! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, they’ve all helped to get Sarai home. Now let’s hope they call and we can get her into this study!