Sunday March 4, 2012

Today was a busy day. We had to go shopping for all the things that we would need for when Tatum was at home. We finally went out and bought her car seat, stroller, preemie diapers, bassinet, bottles, etc. We got her room all cleaned up and ready for her. Tonight will be Tatum's last night at the hospital. They have a nesting suite for parents of babies in the NICU to spend the night in before the day of discharge. They allow you to spend the night in the room with your baby and take care of your baby all night. Should you need them, they are right down the hall but it's to allow you to get comfortable with the baby off of all apparatuses and take care of the baby before you go home the next day. They also made us watch a bunch of videos, take an infant CPR class and Tatum had to pass the car seat challenge test. They had her sit in her car seat strapped in for one hour to make sure that her respiration, etc. stayed okay before they will allow the baby to go home. She passed with flying colors! Now we had to spend the night with the baby in our suite and take care of her like we were at home. We just had to call the nurse every time she ate or had a diaper change to report how much she ate and whether or not she had a wet or dirty diaper. Needless to say we were up all night making sure she was breathing and okay. I'm sure it's the same for all parents the first time they take care of their baby all night. It was so crazy. We would take our cell phones and use the light from them to illuminate her crib to make sure we could see her breathing. All of us survived the night and we were incredibly happy when morning came!!!