Almost...

Around noon I was at a conference in San Francisco when I got word from Elaine that Maddy would be discharged today. Awesome! Finally! I headed over the hospital and we spent a while going through all the discharge details. Instead of rushing home, we decided to hang around for a while to visit with Milo before bringing Maddy home. A bit after 7:00 pm I finished carring all of Maddy's things out to the car, brought in her car seat, and was about to start getting her all set for the journey home. Then an alarm went off.

The alarm only lasted for a couple seconds, but it was a familiar sound -- one we've heard many time before, though not too often of late. We looked up quickly at Maddy's monitor just in time to see the number 86 in the top right hand corner. It was only there for a moment, and within a second or two the number jumped to 124, then 130 something, then back up to the 150s. As you all know by now, a brady occurs anytime a baby's heart rate drops below 100 for more than 10-15 seconds. And as you also know, whenever a NICU baby has a brady she must be kept in the hospital for 5 days for further observation. In Maddy's case, I guess it's tough to tell whether she remained below 100 for more than 10-15 seconds, though it was probably close. But regardless, the result is 5 more days of hanging out in the NICU for Maddy.

I guess 5 days shouldn't matter that much after 111 have gone by, but this was pretty tough to take. It hasn't always been easy going through this ordeal, but we've tried to keep upbeat. Tonight was a rough though. We know the docs and the folks at Alta Bates are looking out for Maddy, and this is just the way it has to be. It still sucks.