The Gebhard Family Blog: Coming Home

On Tuesday, November 1st, we got to bring Owen home. I was honestly hesitant to go home and would have stayed at Rex for a week if they would let me! Haha! I loved my stay there and how I had around the clock care and never had to think about when I had to take my pain medication. I felt more at ease going home having my Mom in town though. She was already at our apartment cleaning and cooking awaiting our arrival home.

The day before we were slated to bring Owen home, he was a little jaundice. His bilirubin wasn't horrible, but it was slightly elevated. The nurses told me the only way to keep it down would be to feed him constantly. Our last night in the hospital was a restless one for me because I wanted to make sure I fed Owen as much as he would take. The night nurse was this kind Polish lady who called me "My Lady" and would come check on me every 1-2 hours to see if I was feeding him. I didn't want our little man leaving the hospital jaundice at all! It was definitely successful because his bilirubin levels never went up. A funny story though - the nurses back in the nursery never see the parents of the babies. They thought Owen looked really yellow whenever he was back there and would check his bilirubin levels and wondered why it wasn't as high as they thought it would be. My nurse was telling me this story and said she thought it was funny because the nursery nurse never knew Owen was part Asian and assumed he was just really jaundice! Our little man just has a nice olive skin tone thanks to his Mom!!

Discharge was really easy at Rex. I wanted to see the lactation consultant one last time before we left. They had told me they thought Owen's frenulum was a little tight and I was worried he wasn't latching on correctly. Luckily, the lactation consultant gave me a few good tips and I felt good about leaving the hospital without the professional help at my fingertips. Before I knew it, they were wheeling us down to our car and our adventure as first time parents was about to begin!

When we got home, our house was immaculate and dinner was already being made. My Mom had cleaned our entire house top to bottom and it was the biggest relief ever. We had let our house get really messy during those last few weeks because we were concentrating on getting the nursery ready. I physically couldn't do anything productive and it was just one huge mess. Walking into a clean house was the biggest and best welcome home gift new parents could have gotten. Thank you Mom for everything you did for us!!