First Day Home

Hey All,

This post will give you the down low on our first day home from the hospital. I'm a day late, I had every intention of writing this last night, but after all the fun we had yesterday and last night I just crashed so here we go.

Jenn had a rough night at the hospital, nothing serious, but the hospital was packed and she had to change nurses and suffer through a late dose of pain meds. For the second night, Janice stayed with Jenn so she had support, but the luster of the hospital stay was wearing off. When I arrived all was well, but Jenn and Graeme were definitely ready to go. We had another visit from the pediatrician and another lactation consultant. This one said repeatedly, that her nick name was "Magic" we disagreed and decided we'd look to our pediatrician for some guidance. More on that later. After Ms. Modesty left, we started to gather our things; Jenn had her lunch, I filled a few prescriptions and at about 1:30 or so we called for our wheel chair and were on our way home. This was the first time Graeme was in something other than his birthday suit or the less then spectacular onesies the hospital uses. He looked great, even in horizontal stripes he is a lady killer! I will say he seemed like a bit of a diva getting dressed, Graeme is no fan of diaper or wardrobe changes, we're working on that. We didn't get a picture, but Graeme lit up as soon as the doors to the outside world opened. He emerged into a nearly perfect Northern Virginia day, Mid 60s, sunny, a light breeze and a spring tradition, pollen EVERYWHERE!!! The Green Dragon, looked more yellow than green covered in four days of heavy pollen. Finally, we were on our way. We took a right on Seminary road and headed home; Graeme took a nap, Jenn got car sick and I kept it at or under the speed limit.

After our 20 minute commute we turned the corner finding Lil Alex adorned with balloons proclaiming "It's A Boy" courtesy of Janice and Gary. We made our way up the kitchen steps and for the first time we introduced Kayla to her baby brother. I had built this up in my mind, envisioning Kayla simply overcome with excitement finally getting to meet Graeme. After all we'd talked about him non-stop for nine months! Well, it didn't happen that way, Kayla sniffed and gave us a look like, "Really, you're serious, this is what all the fuss is about!" and then was looking for a treat. She's come around some, although I think she still has no clue about Graeme and is picking up on the stress the Jenn and I feel from time to time. She is spending a lot of time on the bathroom floor or in the shower. Right, now she's laying on the floor near Graeme (he's in his swing chair), so I feel pretty good about her coming around. I'm sure she'll have something to say in the near future so we'll save that for a future posting.

After getting over my initial disappointment at our not so triumphant return we settled into a routine. Jenn moved into the Lower Promenade (our lower level for those of you not familiar with Lil Alex, DON'T call it a basement) and unpacked. Graeme took another nap. He wasn't much for eating, he seemed to poop pretty regular, but eating was a challenge. Janice and Gary stayed for pizza and the American Idol elimination show. We're regular watchers so Graeme is familiar with American Idol. Graeme was not impressed with the opening numbers and well let's face it, Stephano was living on borrowed time. After the results show, our first night with Graeme officially began. What we didn't know was what sort of fun we were in for.

You see Graeme has no trouble sleeping during the day, but apparently is still a bit on the nocturnal side. Jenn and I were up just about every hour from 11-5 last night! Either he was making more than a bit of noise or he was totally silent, regardless of his state we were constantly worrying about him. We love this little man, but holy cow he was totally out of sorts last night. He was having trouble feeding and sleeping and he seemed to get totally pissed off when we tried to swaddle him. Subsequent attempts to swaddle or put him in a sleep sack or change a diaper only served to make him more pissed! Nothing seemed to work. By about 2:30 we had about eight outfits on the bed, had tried to swaddle him numerous times, Tried cheater swaddle blankets and sleep sacks nothing seemed to work. Eventually Graeme gave up, apparently he had cried himself to sleep or something very close to sleep. He finally laid down, it was about 3:30. We had to be at the pediatrician at 8:30 so any sleep we could get we took and got some sporadic shut eye. Graeme was up a few times, but nothing like earlier in the night. Our sleep finally ended when Kayla needed letting out at 6:30.

It was a long night, but our first visit to the pediatrician held the promise of a new day.

Day two in our next post!

Peace