Home and Back.

It's official- I am the worst blogger on the face of this earth. That or there just aren't enough hours in my day! So where are we now...

First off- she went home for all of 36 hours. Let me start by saying it was the most stressful yet most amazing 36 hours. Sophie loves her sister so much. I will never forget those precious moments the two of them shared together and the look on Sophie's face. She wanted to hold her sister all the time and whenever Emmie would cry Sophie would yell OH NO!!! And be so concerned! She would put pacis in her mouth and pet her head saying "niiice." this came from us trying to explain how to be gentle and nice to the baby. She wasn't too keen on me nursing Emmie, she thought she was biting me so we had our first encounter of "Sophie do not smack your sister on the head!!!" Highly entertaining :) I got to sit and rock my sweet babies together with no alarms or dinging, no wires or machines. Just the sounds of Rio playing on the TV, the sink running with Nick doing dishes, and my girls peacefully quiet. That was my happy place.

Unfortunately, what I'd refer to as hell began shortly after. Emmie's bags wouldn't stay on, same supplies same technique as we did in the hospital but it wouldn't work. We were doing changes sometimes back to back every 5 minutes to every 45 minutes. She would scream, we would panic, we knew deep down something was wrong but we weren't ready to give up. We didn't sleep for 24 hours we realized we'd gone through 4 days of supplies in 24 hours. We were almost out, we had ONE change left. Then nightmare number 2 struck, the pump and refeed line were not working. We couldn't get the refeed to actually feed into her bowels, without this she can't gain weight. The pump wasn't working, it was pushing too fast or not at all even though it was set correctly. We were all exhausted, it wasn't fair to keep putting Emmie through this. We were nurses not parents and we knew it was time to call the NICU. We already knew they would be readmitting her but I didn't want to hear it. I put her in bed with me and just laid there sobbing over her feeling like a total failure, telling her I was sorry I tried my best and I loved her.

She's in the Special Care area now. I am back to visiting her everyday and counting down until surgery day. She's 7 pounds 8 ounces now, she's nursing all day when I'm here and taking 150 ml in a bottle when I'm not. She's strong, she's fighting, she keeps me going. Her hair is so red now! She's definitely a little ginger baby :). I need her back home with us, we got a taste of how amazing it was to have our family together only to have it ripped away again.

It's been really hard on all of us since she went back. I've crumbled many times, Nick won't say it but I can see the pain in his eyes. Sophie goes into her sisters room and talks about sister, it breaks my heart. This is our life. At least for now this is how it has to be and we will keep living it. We cannot fall apart because both girls need us strong and that's just your job as a parent. If our family can survive this, we can survive anything. I thank God for giving me a strong and solid marriage, we couldn't do this without each other especially on a shakey foundation. If you're married, do NOT take your spouse for granted. Do not put off working on your marriage every single day. Do not risk facing trials without the strongest bond you can possibly have. Love your spouse, communicate, lean on each other and know without a doubt you can survive whatever happens.