the shipleys: July 2015

The day we've been waiting for finally arrived! On the 101st day since we started this journey, we heard the magical words...Cora will be discharged!

Friday, July 3rd I went to the hospital at my usual time, 8:30am. During the week I would go from about 8:30am-1:00pm to do her routine cares of diaper change, temperature, feeding and of course snuggling. The doctors and staff do their rounds at 8:30 where they discuss any new orders or updates for baby so I always tried to tune in for that. Since Friday was the start to the holiday weekend, I was originally going to go in the afternoon since Joe and Joss were home. We always tried to spend the weekend mornings together as a family before making the daily hospital trip. But knowing Cora was on a roll with her feedings, of course I couldn't wait to find out if she completed all her night feedings too. When I showed up the nurse told me she had done them all! Talk about serious excitement! I saw all her doctors come around and they could see me already starting my celebration. Of course my first question was if she didn't finish her next feeding can they change their minds on me?! They told me it was a done deal and they would write up the order for her discharge. I left there around 10:00am, called Joe and told him to get ready to bring our baby girl home!! We got things ready and that afternoon we went and picked up our girl. It was a moment like none other walking through that door and hearing Joslin's voice say 'Cora's home, Cora's home'. Our whole family was finally home together.

It's been a great first week and we are loving the exhaustion and getting to know Cora more. Joslin is one proud big sister and absolutely adores Cora. For her first week home, I had double duty since Joslin's daycare was closed for vacation. (I'm seeing a trend that Cora has impeccable timing...of course she would come home on the only week when Joslin was home the whole week). I was a little nervous to take on both by myself the entire week but I must say Joslin impressed me so much with her patience, helpfulness and good attitude. She is taking on her new role so well! They certainly kept me busy and it was a bit impossible for me to get anything else done, hence the delay in this post! With 1 week under our belt and many more to go I can't wait to watch their bond grow and see lil miss Cora blossom.

It's hard to believe this all started on March 24th when I was admitted to the hospital. I don't know where the last 3 months went in this whirlwind but I'm so happy we can move on and start living our life together as a family of four. This experience has made us stronger and makes me realize we can endure life's unexpected challenges. We learned to accept the uncertainties and adapt to new routines. We learned asking for help is okay and necessary. Now we can finally settle in to life with our 3-month old newborn, such a weird thing to think about. Even though Cora's birthday is in April, a part of me will always celebrate July and her homecoming. And for the next couple years, her milestones and growth will be based on her original due date of 7/11. We have several follow up appointments and developmental clinics to come and will continue praying for healthy growth for Cora as we go through these steps, but we are so incredibly grateful for the many answered prayers. I read something that having a preemie was seeing God's creation still in the making and it is so true. We've seen her fragile skin strengthen, her tiny little features fill out, watched her learn to breathe on her own and witnessed her overcome every challenge of being here too soon. She's simply amazing. Welcome home baby girl.

{ Day 73 }

6/30/15

I loved it when the nurses would leave little notes on the video cam...towards the end I started calling much more frequently!