Happy new year

I don't have a lot of time to post what with trying to get ourselves sorted out at home, but the quick and wonderful news is that Wren came home this afternoon at about 2pm.

After all we have been through the discharge was rather uneventful. The nurse came in and went through a long sheet covered with scrawly writing which detailed subjects such as "wound care 2X a day", "ng feeds 5X per day at 3hr intervals", "hydrocortisone at 8hr intervals", "other meds 2X daily or 1X daily as per pharmacy instructions"... etc etc.

We have weekly appointments sheduled, first with the cardiac surgery team next Friday, then with our pediatrician and finally another cardiology appointment and echo in 3 weeks time. We have decided to see Dr Lewin at Children's rather than Dr Krabel (although both are great). Children's is so close and we feel that Dr Lewin was instrumental in advocating the CoArc repair rather than the Norwood and believed Wren could do well. We like that optimism.

Frost is very happy to have Wren home. We have a little baby-monitor which I asked Frost to keep track of to see when Wren wakes up. He carries it around and whenever he hears a murmur he runs into the bedroom to "check on Wren". I think it is important for him to have a role.

Josh is also happy. I learned about the discharge at 6am but didn't wake Josh with a phone call. Instead, he woke without the news and assumed Wren was not to be released. He lay in bed a while making up various rants about how Wren should be released because he was just having baby-sitting at the hospital and we could do everything else just as well at home. He has been holding Wren a great deal and looked after him for a few hours while Mum and I went out to buy a crib-mattress and more supplies.

I confess that even with homecoming so close for days we have not had the house ready. I haven't bought any baby things until the last few days and so the basics are lost or mislaid. Other stuff is in bags all over the place (we came home with tons of bags of stuff - only some of which is essential).

I feel we are coping with all the medical stuff we have to do, the part I find hard is worrying about Wren all the time. At hospital, I could just ask a nurse or doctor about something that I was obsessing about but now the things he was doing in hospital are freaking me out. Is he breathing too fast? A (Josh): No, he always breathes like that. He just breathes fast. You couldn't hear it in the hospital [where fans were always going]. Are his hands cold? (Josh) Well, he's not wrapped up. I am just scared I will miss something and he will be ill or in trouble.

Anyway, I hope that we get some sleep tonight. There seem to be so many scheduled events - feeds, meds, etc - between now and 8am!