I Hope I Don't Jinx Anything With This Post

Thanks for all the comments :^) My self-esteem is at an all-time high. Which is helpful, because I've been, shall we say, riding a bit of a bummer for the past few days. First, the good news: Sigrid comes home today!!!! News previously thought to be bad, but was really just caused by a false alarm: she's still a patient here at the hospital (for another hour or so), which you may have guessed already, unless you thought she was coming home today from her first Caribbean cruise or something.

Because Sigrid really can't get enough drama -- she got addicted to it with that first preterm contraction -- she decided to test positive for a blood infection on the evening of the 21st. It was a lovely scene; I was watching Jeopardy with Chris, holding little Sigrid as she snored and squeaked, and then an RN came in, told us she would have to stay in the NICU for a week due to a positive blood culture, and TOOK HER AWAY. There was more sympathy and explanation than I'm recording here, but that's mainly what I remember. They took a second blood sample to rule out contamination in the original culture, but were going to start her on IV antibiotics and put her on monitors until Friday the 28th. I was, shall we say, a wreck.

The next morning, after some sleep and a few visits to the nursery, I felt more sane and was able to look at the positives. First, Sigrid was not showing any signs of illness, so they clearly caught whatever-it-was early. Second, even though I was being discharged, the hospital was going to allow us to stay in our room as boarders, FOR FREE. Plus, it turned out, they were going to continue to give me meals. They'd move us or kick us out if a patient needed the room, of course, but wow -- what a generous policy. I guarantee that we wouldn't have had that option if we'd ended up at Women & Infants' (as we'd planned before the whole "birth plan" went out the window). Third, there was a chance -- a small chance -- that the second culture would come back negative, and she'd never really had an infection at all. We tried not to get our hopes up too much on that front.

So, in short, I prepared for a week of nursing Sigrid in the NICU and pumping and storing milk so I might be able to come home for a night or two (also as insurance in case they had to kick me out of my free room).

In the end, obviously, the second blood culture still hadn't shown any growth after 48 hours, so she's been given a clean bill of health! And we get to go home! To a different kind of madness, I'm sure (since we'll suddenly have to start taking care of two kids at the same time), but it will be our own sweet family madness, and Sigrid will finally be allowed to wear cute clothes. And isn't that what's truly important?