ABIGAIL NEWTON SMITH

Monday, 4th February 2002 - Day 172

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Hello again everybody. Well at last I seem to have finally made it. The nurses and doctors have all agreed that I am finally well enough to go home with Mummy and Daddy. They seem very happy as it means, hopefully a lot less trips back and forward to the hospital all the time. I am happy as I am bound to get more cuddles than ever before and have fun playing with all my relations that will hopefully come and see me now that I am at home.

  !!!! Abigail Has Landed - I am Finally Out of Hospital and Settling into My Home with Mummy and Daddy...!!!!

I am a bit sad in a way though as everybody here in the NICU unit is like an Uncle or Auntie to me, they are all so nice and friendly and have looked after me so well over the past 5½ months that I have been here. However Mummy has said she will bring me back for visits as I grow up to see everybody. The SHO doctors are happy that I am going home, nobody told me they were nearly as new to the unit as me. They arrived at the beginning of August for their rotation and I was the first really small baby they had seen at that point and I manage to leave the unit the day before their last day here. I now feel like I have been able to pass on some valuable training and hopefully they can go on and use it in the future. This morning I woke up a bit hungry and all hell seemed to break loose... Mummy disappeared and came back with a nurse in tow. They fed me medicine, changed my nappy and then decided to weigh me. This would be fine if it was not 3:30 am...!!!!!! All I wanted was a small snack and back to sleep, the only thing that did not happen was a bath.....Luckily I managed to get back to sleep for a few more hours and then woke up nice an early for my last few hours in the unit. I have increased in weight and am now the heaviest I have ever been at 4175 gms or 9lbs 3oz, that must be a good omen, as I have struggled to regain the weight I lost when we started demand feeding but it is all coming back together again now.

Once I was awake and dressed for leaving everything seemed to happen quite quickly, I was dressed up in my leaving outfit (more of that later) and I then did a guided tour of the unit saying my goodbyes to all the nurses, doctors and patients. I passed on the duties of oldest baby to John Paul, as the one who was next in line is also leaving today. He is under strict instructions to keep everybody in order and make sure the whole unit runs smoothly. This obviously can only happen with the babies co-operation and the younger ones, especially the quads, need to be kept in line by the more experienced patients..... Mummy has brought home a lovely box of bits and pieces, my first bonnet, my smallest nappy (clean of course), some leads used to monitor me and lots of other things to remind me in the future of my time here.

When the time came to leave we got to the door and I nearly said to the nurse, forget this take me back. The noise outside was terrible, it was raining really hard, no sunny day for me to come home.... How horrible, I think I need to have a chat in my prayers to somebody to find out what was going on. Maybe his diary was out of date and did not have my leaving date in.... Daddy was just about to put me in this big white thing which he tells me is Mummy's car when I was whisked away back into the unit. Lucky me I thought back for more cuddles and good byes... But alas no, the nurse had forgotten that I needed to have a Polio vaccine given, I was supposed to have it earlier but they had forgotten. So another 10 minutes later we get to try round 2 of leaving and this time Daddy got me in the car and I got a nice ride home and spent the rest of the day with Mummy and Daddy just bonding at home, in the peace and quiet just the 3 of us. Alone at last....

The pictures below are the last ones in the hospital before we left to come home, and the ones at the bottom are of me when I got home, in my going away outfit. I think I am going to have to have words with Mummy and Daddy about my wardrobe. I ask you look at the snow suit, who was this meant for Goliath. I am still only just over nine pounds you know, the arms are so long I thought somebody had cut my hands off. And as for the hat, nice idea, shame about the fact that I could have cut a hole in the top and used it as a t-shirt. But anyway we have ages to resolve these issues and I am sure Mummy and Daddy can spot their mistakes....

Sorry for the delay in updating the website but it has been so hectic, I will get the other pages updated this week so that they are all filled in with write ups for the day.

 

 

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Last Updated : 06/02/02. © The Newton Smiths 2002.