~*~*~*Gabriella Rose Is Home!!~*~*~*

We are elated and overjoyed to let you all know that Gabriella Rose is now at home in the bosom of her family and for the time being, sleeping soundly surrounded by a beaming Daddy and an ecstatic albeit exhausted Mum.

We got a much later departure time than anticipated due to several factors. Before ANY baby leaves Maine Med they must go through a car seat test required by the state of Maine. What this entails is hooking the baby up to heart rate, respiration and oxygen saturation monitors and keeping them in their car seat for however long the trip home takes. Well, a 15 minute test for Gidget turned into an hour long test because the nurse forgot about us.

So that was one thing.

Then Dr. Epstein wanted to get a discharge echocardiogram to check on the status of her PDA (Peytons Ductus something or other – the valve that was still open in her heart that was supposed to close at birth) and to check on her arrhythmia. So I don’t see this thing as a hold-up, but good news that was very welcome.

The duct has now closed of its own accord and Gidget was in normal sinus rythym…no more extra beats or dropped beats or bigiminy or trigiminy.

YAYYYYYYYYYY!

Go go Gidget power! That’s my girl. Dr. Epstein was happy and said that we’d need to go to his office in 4 weeks for a follow-up and for another 24 hour halter-monitor test and then at 2-3 month intervals after that. He said that everything looks great though and they just want repeat visits to make sure it stays that way.

Then the last thing that held us up was Gidget’s hearing test. Another test required by the state of Maine before any newborn leaves the hospital. That took forever and the lady conducting the test was a daft cow who was more interested in bending Gareth’s ear about the late Princess Diana’s death than she was about getting on with the hearing test. She wanted to know if the Royals really had her killed. Yeah, Gareth has the inside scoop on all this stuff!

Then once that was done I had to show my driver’s license, proof of auto insurance, sign some papers and they took Gidget’s lojack device (ok it’s not really a lojack, but similar enough in nature) off and we were free to go!!!!!!!!

Here is our girl, getting ready to leave the hospital…….13 days old and just looking as adorable as can be.

And here she is at home, all nice and snug in her Moses Basket.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you all for your prayers and well wishes. We know they helped get us and our precious Ameribrit baby to this point.

All our love,

Gareth, Audrey and Gabriella