Trinity is Home!!!!

Trinity is finally home after 11 days in the NICU!!! Shannon and I got to bring her home around 7:30 last night. Yesterday when I got to the hospital the doctors were doing their rounds and asked if we were comfortable bringing Trinity home and doing the catheter. Since Shannon and I have both got to do the catheter a few times with the help of the nurses we both felt comfortable doing it on our own. Before Trinity left the hospital they did an ultrasound on her hips to make sure that they are in place and the ultrasound showed that her hips looked good. Although it is exciting to bring Trinity home, it is somewhat overwhelming and scary. We are doing the catheter every 4 hours and she is eating about every 3-4 hours. She's also on two different medicines. One is to make sure she don't get infection on her back and the other is to make sure she don't get bladder infection from the catheter. The nurses were very kind in making us a schedule so we don't miss anything. I forgot what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night and take care of a baby. We are doing the catheter and then feeding her while the catheter is in, otherwise we would have to sit and wait for it and that usually takes about 20 minutes to drain her bladder. She does her job and we usually are back in bed in about 1 hour. We are very blessed with Trinity and Aubree. Trinity rarely crys and is such a calm baby. Aubree has been really good since we brought Trintiy home and although it has been an adjustment for her she's been a great sister to Trinity, she even shared her blankie with Trinity today. Shannon is back at work and my mom is still here helping me. My dad flys in tomorrow night and then my mom and dad will leave on Sunday morning. It will be really hard having them leave, but Kathy will be here Sunday night to help us for two weeks. We have a lot of followup appointments for Trinity in the next two weeks. This makes it challenging when we have to do the catheter every 4 hours. Trinity's lesion looks really good, it is still leaking, but they don't seem really concerned about it. We have a Home Health Nurse that is coming to our house 2-3 times a week. She came today and looked at Trinity and went through some paperwork with me. She has another patient with Spina Bifida and gave me the mom's phone # so I could contact her and get some info to help us contact different people that can help us with some of the medical bills that we will have with Trinity. It will also be nice to talk to her for support and also since she knows what Shannon and I are going through. The nurse is really nice and has a lot of information that will really help us get through this. It is hard sometimes to think of what we have to do for Trinity, but like the nurse said today, Trinity will never know any different and someday Shannon and I will not either. This is definitely going to be an adjustment for our family, but with God and each other I know that we can get through anything. God always tells us that he will not give us more then we can handle. I have come to realize that someone somewhere always has it so much harder then we do. If you remember back to my blogs when I was doing the NST(non stress test) I had met a lady by the name of Liz. They were also having a baby with Spina Bifida. Unfortunately last week when I was checking her blog I found that they had lost their baby boy, Luke, on February 19. They show amazing strength in their blog and I can't imagine what they are going through. Please pray for them during this tough time and ask God to give them an understanding as to why he chose to take Luke at such a young age. We continue to appreciate all the support that we have received from all of you. It is overwhelming sometimes to think that this many people are lifting us up in prayer. We really feel your love and your prayers. God has blessed Shannon and I with so much in our 4 years of marriage and I can't wait to see what he has in store for us in the future. We have posted some pictures of when we were leaving the hospital and when we got home. There is a picture of us and our favorite nurse, Marsha. We were very blessed to have such great nurses while Trinity was in the NICU. Marsha was definitely one of our favorites and it always made us feel good when we knew she was taking care of Trinity.