Hamilton Hams: Ethan's Story - Ethan Comes Home

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Ethan's Story - Ethan Comes Home

The day had finally arrived when we would be able to take Sweet Ethan home. December 30, 2008, after 25 days in the NICU/PCN we would take him home to join his brother and sisters. They had wanted us to room in with him for a night before we took him home but all the rooms were booked, guess lots of moms wanted to get a tax deduction in :) So they decided that Chris and I would both stay with him in the PCN for 2 feedings with no monitors on him except for his heart/apnea monitor which lucky for us was coming home with us. They wanted to make sure we knew what do in the event that the monitor went off at home. He was also sent home on 2 medications, one for his heart called Digoxin and amoxicillian to ward off any UTIs. The Digoxin made me so nervous, we had to listen and count his heart beats and if they were below 100 bpm we would have to call the cardiologist before administering. We also had to give it exactly at the scheduled time - 8 am and 8 pm. If we got off schedule and gave it to him to early we risked his heart dropping to low and his heart stopping or if we gave it to him to late we risked his heart going into SVT. Talk about stress! He had to wear his monitor 24 hours a day for the first 4 1/2 months of his life. It was actually a bit of relief, I don't know how I would have slept those first couple of months if we didn't have that!

We finally got home around 11:30 that night. Gracie spent the night at a friends house and Jake and Anna Claire were at my parents. We were so exhausted and so excited to have our Sweet Ethan home. I laid him in our bed between us and Chris and I just sat and watched him for hours. We were in total amazement and awe at this wonderful and perfect gift that God had given us.

The kids came home the next day and were so excited to see that Sweet Ethan was at home and was well.