Elliot means "Gift from God"

2-Ply toilet paper is UNDER-RATED!  Needless to say WE ARE HOME!  Dorthy was spot on when she said, "There is no place like home".  I have to apologize that we have left all our "followers" hanging. I have finally experienced complete and utter exhaustion and had no energy left to type.  But, no news is good news here!

To back up a little bit, I was discharged yesterday morning, with my bags packed at 7am, rushing the doctors and nurses to fill out my paperwork.  They kept telling me "no rush honey" and I kept telling them, "I've got to get to my baby!" After signing the papers and filling my lovely narcotic prescriptions, we were off to Children's to spend the day with Elliot.  Typical day in the NICU, lots of buzzers going off and beeping and hub-bub around teeny tiny bundles of joy.  We got to change lots of diapers, work on breast-feeding and love on him. I'm not sure he was ever laid down yesterday between Byron and I, the Grandma's and his Auntie Blair holding him. Its hard when you have to learn how to do all those things with a million wires hanging off your baby and then when you accidentally knock one off, his machine starts beeping.  I tried my hardest not to look at the monitor, but I'm a mom now and I have to. 

At lunch the most fabulous news came...Elliot got relieved of his IV, which was a beautiful thing.  The poor little boy didn't even know what to do with his hand for about 12 hours, because since he was born he has had that IV in with this brace device on his arm.  He was taking in enough fluid, finished his antibiotics and was impressing all his doctors, and his nurses told us that as long as he doesn't do anything foolish, he could go home on Sunday.  We never imagined when all this started last Friday that we would ever be able to take our baby home that soon.  Not even a week in the NICU...Miracle Baby! 

The rest of the night we all took a sigh of relief and started laughing more for once.  Most likely laughing at me, since I was finally remembering all the weird things I did and said during my C-Section after being on all those drugs.  Having control of ones own morphine is a wonderful thing, but needless to say it can leave you a little loopy.  Let's just say, I told the doctors that I'd rather be in pain than itch anymore...I got a lot of odd looks, haha. 

Children's Hospital is a great place and they have Family Suites that you can sign up for to stay in especially if you have a baby in the NICU.  Byron and I were lucky enough to snag a Suite last night...it was a nice bed, but the speaker system going off in our room at 2am with a Code Blue in some 6th floor room, scared the crap out of us.  That along with the phone calls to feed Elliot every 2 hours, left us feeling like real parents!  This morning was spent waiting around for the doctors to do their rounds and sign off on all of Elliot's paperwork.  When the time finally came, Byron got the shakes and was a little uneasy about our ability to be parents without the help of all the nurses and doctors.  With lots of encouragement, we found ourselves in the elevator with a wagon full of stuff we have collected over the week and headed to the car.  Of course I had to sit in the back, Doctors orders that I can't drive for a bit, but it totally worked in my favor this time since I got to stare at Elliot the whole way home. 

We made it home, whipped out the video camera and introduced Elliot to Filson.  Filson is not totally impressed, however, we did leave Filson on Monday unexpectedly and never got to say good-bye.  I think after some lovin' from Byron, Filson will warm up to Elliot and they will be best friends.

So far since being home, Elliot has pooped 4 times, hahaha, and tried out every baby gadget that we have received, we just couldn't resist.  Its great to be home with our new bundle of joy and to start our family!  We will continue to post throughout our adventures and doctor visits and again we want to thank everyone for the out-pouring of love, prayers and good thoughts that were sent this way, we couldn't have done it without everyone's support!

Nap time with Daddy

Auntie Lovin'

Time to go home

Car ride

Going on a tour of the house

The baby burrito content in his swing