HOME.♡

Not only are we sneaky, we've been super sneaky for the past week. 

Our coming home date was 17th July,

WE'RE HOME. 

....and have been for the past week.....

Yep, we have been home since the 17th July and it could not be more amazing. Orlaith is simply loving being home, she's settled in really well and she's kept to her routine and still sleeping through the night; even though our home is a completely new environment for her. It didn't feel right, it felt so weird and surreal driving into our street and taking her through the front door... Neighbours stopped and congratulated us as we carried 3 and a half months worth of hospital living into the house and then it hit us - we are home!! We decided not to tell anybody, we surprised those closest to us and have kept it hush ever since.... We decided to tell no one just so we had our time together first - and we're so glad we did it this way. Orlaith's medical schedule is so jam packed that to have visitors too soon would have been too much...coming home isn't as easy as what people may think; we have a medication schedule to stick to, a strict feeding routine, injections and BM's on the 3rd and 4th hour...but we wouldn't have it any other way, even if sleep is non existent. 

It still hasn't quite settled in my mind that we are home and able to live a fairly normal life with a baby, given the circumstances. I would still rather stay at home all the time in case anything goes wrong but slowly that feeling is disappearing. Orlaith had her first hypo at home on Saturday night, to 2.7 an hour before her feed was due; we followed the hypo plan and she brought herself back up again within the given time. The sense of accomplishment is over whelming, knowing that, as parents, we did that ourselves and Orlaith maintained the level and brought herself up - no medical intervention required, no breaking the bad news of "up on the fluids", no sinking feeling of knowing that home would be further away... just a feed and some gluco gel and she was stable again. Proud mumma! 

We nearly didn't come home, Orlaith had 4 major hypos during the night before we were due to come home (typical!) and just couldn't bring herself back up again, even with a feed. I literally felt gutted and I knew the news in the morning would not be what we wanted. Despite it all, I still packed everything up and tried to be positive; we were given the option to not go home and monitor Orlaith a bit longer or look into the options of her medicines and the dosage. After checking and reviewing with the big dr, the dosage was reviewed to her weight and we were allowed to go home under a new plan of 3rd and 4th hour BM's to monitor her. I know Orlaith can hold her levels which is why we made that decision - as her parents, we know her better than anyone and we knew it was just a frustrating coincidence that it was the night before we were due to leave! It's also common for new environments to cause hypos as they settle in but we've only had that one on Saturday night, phew!

One thing, I love is being able to go out if we want to. I went into the town where I work and it was nice to be able to take Orlaith with me! It also felt amazing that despite not currently being at work, the girls were all thinking of us and have constantly had us in their thoughts... although, I think Orlaith loved it just because of the attention she got!! Unfortunately we had to go shortly after arriving as Orlaith needed her medication but I can't wait to go back once we're a bit more stable. Small things like going to the doing a food shop, visiting family or going to Windsor to see a close friend.. it's all much more normal now and hopefully within time, we will be used to the meds and taking her out .... and eventually have a huge party to celebrate :D

We can't thank people enough for their support and well wishes, 

but we made it! 

HOME. ♡