soon we'll be out of here!

Daddy is here with us this weekend. We are learning everything we need to know to take care of Dahlia when we go home. How to dispense the 14 different medications she is on, how to recognize the signs of rejection. What she can do, what she can't do. It's a bit overwhelming, but in time I'm sure everything will become second nature.

5 months

Yesterday Dahlia turned 5 months old.  She has been in the hospital for all but two weeks of the time.  On Monday we are finally going to be discharged!  I am so ready to get out of here.  Dahlia got her feeding tube out yesterday.  I was worried about her being able to take all of those medications by mouth.  However, she actually seems to like them and happily swallows them down, thank goodness! Today here PIC line was taken out and as of now she has absolutely nothing in or attached to her and all her stitches are out. It is so wonderful to be at this point in her recovery.  There were so MANY times it looked like she wouldn't make it.  I thought I would never get to use all those diapers or cute little outfits I got from her baby shower. I thought I would have to plan a funeral. Watching her come back from the brink of death, and every thing we have gone through has been life changing. We won't be able to go home yet; we have to stay in the area for three months.  I'll take that any day over the hospital!

happy valentine's day

Our little valentine is doing good! Yesterday she was taken off all monitors, it is so nice not to have all of those leads stuck all over her chest. Now instead of constantly being monitored, her vital signs are taken every three hours. We just need to work on getting that feeding tube out.  Dahlia takes a bottle every three hours, but she has never been able to finish it, which is to be expected because she wasn't able to take anything by mouth for so long.  The doctor told us we could be discharged as early as next week!



I couldn't resist adding pictures of my other sweet hearts.  I hate that I'm only able to see them on the weekends.

Update

On Tuesday Dahlia's chest was finally able to be closed.  Thank goodness, it was hard to see her like that.  Today Dahlia was taken off the ventilator and placed on a CPAP, which she'll be on at least overnight. Her doctors are pleased with the progress she is making and said she has had a good week. When Dahlia was diagnosed with a severe, life threatening illness, I went through all the different stages of grief, especially denial.  It still completely blows my mind that after having 4 healthy children, my last, sweet baby was born with a heart defect, that caused severe heart failure, which led to a Berlin Heart, which led to a HEART TRANSPLANT.  Unbelievable!