Our final days in the NICU

Hi everyone! How are you all doing? I hope all is well. Well, we are getting so close to seeing little Patrick at home. This NICU has become such a big part of our lives, and it has been such a constant, that it is going to be weird to not be there.  I'm going to take a moment to go over our 4 months with you.
For the last 4 months, we have been at the Broward General NICU, in the Chris Everett Children's hospital.  We were there for 196 days.

We leave every night at 7:15pm, like clockwork. That gets us there by 8pm for our hands on. We pass notable places like the "Booby Trap": Love stuff store. A Place called "The Mental Ward" which is a comedy club, and "The Kreepy Tiki" which is a bar/tattoo parlour. Yeah, it's a great part of town, haha.

                                                                              The Mental Ward

                                                                                            Booby Trap

We have walked down the long hallway through the ER about 130 times. We show our bracelets to the security guards, who after 196 days, still don't know who we are. However the lady at the front desk, who sees us twice a month, does.

We pass the Grand Piano that plays all kinds of music. I like to play a game with Craig called "Name that Tune in 100 feet." Basically, it comes down to, can you name that song by the time you leave the long hallway to the time you get past the gift shop.  It has played approximately 292 songs, give or take. I have guessed right at least 260. Most played songs, Elton John's "Circle of Life" and "Don't let the sun go down on me" Weirdest songs randomly played. "Ghostbusters" and Christmas songs...in August.

We then head past Starbucks, Subway and McDonalds to the Elevators.

Yumms food!

We enter the hospital NICU here, where we get buzzed in.

                                                                                        Buzz me in please!

                                                                                           This way please!

                                                                                      Bye froggy, I'll miss you!

                                                                                       Thanks for keeping the boys cozy!

We walk past the little kids section with the animal table.

We walk down the hall and get buzzed in again.
We go to the scrub sink, where we scrub in for 3 minutes, then place a gown on. We have scrubbed in approximately 155 times. On occasion we were there twice a day. We have worn about 155 hot sweaty yellow gowns.

 We sign in as Mom and Dad Connor each time. We did numerous diaper changes, taken tons of temperatures, and have given more bottles than I remember.  We stay and chat with the nurses, who have become new friends in our lives, and who have already asked to hang out with us after we leave.  We get rounds from the amazing doctors, who from day one have treated us like family.

We talk to the other parents about their babies, and talk about coming to the reunion so that we can all see each other again. We make play dates with other babies there. We say hello to new babies, and goodbye to babies that make it out healthy. We talk about who is here for what, and how long that they are staying.  We have seen babies who have just been there for two days. Babies that have been there for weeks. Babies that have gone home, then come back. Babies that have gone to progressive, then back to acute, progressive, then acute. We have seen babies go home in great shape to new parents. We've seen lots of twins! On a sadder note, we have seen babies that belong to babies, babies that are addicts, and babies that pass on. There are good times in the nicu, and there are sad times there too.  the saying that this will be a roller coaster from hell, sums it up. There were great highs, and terrible lows.

We stay until about 12 am, then drive 45 minutes back home. We may or may not leave through this door...a lot.....

                                                                                      Cause we are rebels....

On the way out of the hospital we pass a wedding dress shop. They have changed the Brides dress, the Tux, and the two bridesmaid dressed a total of 6 times. They have all been beautiful with the exception of one bridesmaid dress. We come home, stay awake for awhile discussing the events of the night. I blog, then go to sleep, to do it all again the next day.

The things I will miss;
The nurses
The doctors
The front desk staff who calls us mommy and daddy Connor
The parents of the babies that the boys "grew up" with
Their baby friends
Starbucks most nights
Mcdonalds almost as much

Things I will not miss;
The drive
The gowns
Scrubbing in, and waiting for the 20 snail like moving parents ahead of us to get out of the way.
Parents complaining
The alarms on the monitors
The phone calls in the middle of the night that scare the life out of us.
Waiting for test results
The "Who's taking care of our baby while our primaries aren' t there?" feeling.
Trying to decipher what Dr. Tanfulla says to me with his thick accent.
My bracelets, or my "bacteria holders"
The scary parking lot where I feared for our lives each night
The gas bill
The Sunpass bill.

All that being said, our NICU days will soon be over. I will miss you in so many ways, and then not at all. In the end, we have two baby boys who will be spoiled, and loved to no end. We owe that all to the NICU. You have given us two amazing gifts, and there is not enough ways to say thank you for everything that you have done.

Okay, now that that is out of the way, let's get to our updates
Patrick
Our little man is having a better day today. He was still a little fussy with his bottle, but it turned out that the nipple was cut to big again. We fixed it, and then he did well. His butt is still looking great. He didn't have any brady or dsating issues last night. They did his car seat test, so he will be ready to go, and he did pass it, yea! He had some blood work down to check his levels, and it all came back fine, including the phos, for his bone density. He was 6 pounds 3 ounces.

                                                                                 Me, Patrick, and Pria. She used to have Brady alot when he first got there. She is the inventor of what we call the "Pria position." Brady used to try to pull out his tube, and she used to pin his arms to his side by folding his blanket around him. Whenever we walked in and saw it, we knew she was his nurse that day.

                                                                                     Dr. Tryzmel. Before this pick was taken, Patrick started crying. He held on to him for a minute rocking him, and hummed a lullaby for him until he fell asleep.  We will miss him. He is an awesome doctor.

                                                                            Me, Dr. Tryzmel, Patrick and Craig

                                                                              Me, Craig, Amanda (Patrick's first day primary)

Brady
Brady is having a good day. He was wide awake today for Craig. He woke up around 8 am, and stayed awake til about 1130am.  We stopped by Craig's parents house today, so he had a little visit. Craig's dad took him on a tour of the house, and showed him where all the toys were hidden for when he gets older. He is back to eating somewhat normally today. he is still spitting it out a little, but otherwise doing good. I didn't get any pictures of him today because we were running errands and stuff. Oh wait I did get this one...
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                                                                                           SURPRISE!!!!!!!
                                                                                         PATRICK CAME HOME TODAY!!

    Did I get you?! Okay so here is the deal. I knew last night that he was coming home today. I tried to play it off in the blog last night so I could surprise you all today! We got home tonight at about 9pm. At first they had said Wednesday, then last night, they said nope tomorrow. I was of course terrified after last nights drama, but he did great overnight, and they said it's time to go! He did great in the car on the way home!

                                                                                        I'm not sure about this boppy yet...

                                                                                      The loves of my life

                                                                                     The "boppy brothers"

                                                                                       Einstein took him in right away. He is being such a good boy!

                                                                                      Little man

We are finally done with that place! I just want to take a minute to say thank you. Thank you to everyone that has kept up with the blog each night. Thank you for the support that you have given us, and for  giving me the push to keep doing it each night. Thank you for all of the kind words and prayers that you have all sent our way. Thank you to everyone that has given blood to the boys, and sent gifts our way. This would have been a lot harder if we didn't have all of you in our lives. I know  I have said it before, but we truly are blessed to have all of you. I can't wait for everyone to meet them one day. I can't wait to tell them about all of you, and all the support that they had. This has been a crazy, scary, happy, terrifying, learning, and amazing experience. One which we will hopefully never go through again!  I will still keep blogging, so stay tuned. It just might not be as much. I will keep everyone updated on all the doctors appointments and there progress. Don't worry!
Alright, I have two hungry boys to feed, so I must go.

As I sit here and get ready to feed them, I stare at them moving all around, and all I can think of is this.
We are home
We have our boys
Our life is now complete
Our family is now whole'

Love to all
Emily, Craig, Brady, and Patrick Connor