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Early in the morning I received a phone call from the hospital that Zoey had been moved to the stepdown unit. I have to admit that a moment of panic set in when I read the first three numbers on my phone and knew it was from the NICU. I was told by Zoey’s nurse that she had been moved and how to find her new room on a different floor. Zoey was improving quickly and had her feeding tube moved from her mouth to her nose, this helps her create the suction needed to feed from a bottle. Weight gain was becoming an issue again, with several days seeing little in weight increase then a jump of a few ounces in a short period of time. On a Saturday, her mother and I arrived to the NICU for her weigh-in and I had a feeling she was going to weigh 5 pounds, a goal we had been looking forward to. The scale fluctuated for a few seconds until it stopped with her weight in kilograms. Multiply by 2.2 and you have the conversation. Zoey had reached 5 pounds and we were excited. “High five Zoey!” her hand went up and her tiny palm touched mine. A look of surprise was on the face of the nurse and Sarah started to laugh that Zoey had followed my lead.
We shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Zoey had been moved to the stepdown. At 5 pounds she was able to regulate her own body temperature. Feeding from a bottle came naturally to her and after two days of taking most of her food orally the nurse didn’t replace the feeding tube when Zoey ripped it out of her nose. We had been told that with her being in the stepdown Zoey would still need 3-4 more weeks before she would come home with us. A few days later the nurses were running us through a parenting crash course and we had to buy a car seat. Zoey never went back on oxygen. She was eating all of her meals from a bottle and telling us when she was hungry. Her temperature was no longer checked unless she appeared cold or might have a fever. I had to take time off from work in order to watch the videos required by the hospital. There was a car seat course we had to schedule if we were going to take her home. Both of our houses were a mess.
I had been going through things at home and throwing out loads of items that I didn’t need or didn’t want. Old DVDs that I had not watched in years were taken to work and placed in the free bin in the breakroom. Half of my dishes were donated to the local Goodwill. Expired dry goods were thrown in the trash. Records I never listened to were donated. Video games were sold to a secondhand store. Then there was flea issue.
Every year like clockwork these tiny little ankle biters appear in the house. My cat doesn’t go outside so I can only guess as to how they make their way inside. This year was worse than others. Flea powder didn’t appear to be helping my cat. I knew I couldn’t have Zoey at my house until this plaque was taken care of. I cleaned everything, vacuuming all the carpets, mopping the floors, then buying flea bombs and spray to cover every nook and cranny while my cat and I bummed around town for three hours before returning home. After treating my house with Shock and Awe tactics the army of black little biters was finally gone.
The day came when we knew Zoey was coming home. The stepdown unit had a sleep over room where we would wake up and feed her throughout the night. We were on our own and learned what we had to look forward to with a baby at home. With three hours of sleep that night we signed some papers promising of all things to take Zoey to her checkups. Some of the nurses from the NICU came down that morning to say goodbye and around noon we were carrying Zoey to the elevator in a car seat. After 91 days, the event was anti-climactic. Zoey was asleep, we were half awake, and the staff was busy with other babies who were not doing as well as Zoey.
The week that followed had us in a panic. How could we take care of a baby that needed nurses and doctors for the first three months of her life? When Zoey was quiet in her crib we woke up in a panic thinking we had to do CPR only to find she was fine. There was a time for adjustment that we needed and weren’t prepared for.
Things have become easier since that first week. Zoey is overall an easy baby to care for. She doesn’t cry that often. She tells us when she is hungry. She doesn’t fuss when she is in the outside world. She didn’t go home on a monitor or a feeding tube. She has no prescriptions for post hospital care. Considering she went home three weeks before her due date should we really be surprised? If there is one thing we should know by now about Zoey it’s that she was eager to get out into the world and she does things on her own time, not what somebody else expects for her. Our little girl was 6 pounds when her due date came around and when most people see her in public they immediately think she is a new born. Her due date was a new starting point in our lives, a time when we start to measure her progress as if she was just born. We have to forget that she is already 115 days old and now measure her clothes to a date that meant little to us. Our lives are normal now and while we can move on with the normal worries that parents have for their children a part of me will always think of her as that tiny little Hobbit baby in her clear plastic box. It was a long road to get here and I look forward to the adventures up ahead.
Photo: provided by author
