Ember had two really good days and she is clearly waking up out of the newborn sleepy-all-the-time stage. Feeling better probably didn’t hurt either. She was weaned off the oxygen and quickly moved to the step-down continuing care nursery. We were hoping to bring her home in a day or two. Much to my surprise I got a call from a doctor this afternoon asking if we wanted to take her home this evening! Aahhh!! It was so exciting and yet sent me into a very slight panic, too – I was running around the house moving things, cleaning off her cosleeper again, making sure I had clothes picked out. And just being nervous. What do you mean no monitors? As much as I hate the wires and machines that go ping, there was definitely a comfort level to them, knowing they would pick up on anything.

So at 9pm on June 10th we walked out of the NICU with our little Ember! Kate wasn’t misbehaving, but she was being loud… in a nursery full of sleeping babies. I wanted to hold my hand over her mouth! But she was tired and Den got her to settle down with some lullabies. They did a car seat fit check, took my ID band as proof that they did indeed hand over the correct baby (noooo! I wanted that for the scrapbook!), went over some paperwork for me to sign, showed me how to correctly dose vitamins (errr, okay), gave me all of my bottles and bottles of frozen milk, and we were on our way!

When we told Kate we were going to get Ember she said, “Baby??” At the NICU she tried marching right in (and was confused when the doors didn’t open). After scrubbing in she grabbed the carseat and tried dragging it in there. She was very excited to see the baby again. But she was tired and a little whiny. When we got everyone back out to the car I put Kate in while Den put the bags in before loading Ember. Kate immediately started crying and trying to get out of her carseat. “Baby?! Baby?!” I pointed out the baby as Den put Ember and her carseat in the car next to Kate. Kate immediately calmed down and settled in for the ride. Apparently she really likes her new baby.