Claire made such good progress with her nippling over the last week that we heard talk from the NICU nurses that she might be ready to go home by Monday (yesterday), but we still weren’t expecting it. We weren’t in complete denial, but we’d thought there’d be at least a couple days’ notice, and since we still hadn’t been asked by Sunday to bring in a car seat for her car seat test, or told she had officially started her prerequisite two consecutive days of nippling every feeding, Monday seemed like a longshot. So, when we arrived Sunday afternoon, we were caught off guard when our neonatologist told us he had been leaving us a voicemail as we walked in, telling us to bring a car seat because Claire was ready to go home the next day as long as she gained weight that night and passed her care seat test. She did both.

Naturally, our preference would be for both our girls to make such speedy progress and be ready to come home at the same time, but Claire’s readiness is still excellent, exciting news. Brooke is still making good progress, too, but she seemed to feel the anemia a little more than her sister and just needs a few extra days to catch up with her feeding. Both girls’ hemoglobin and hemotocrit levels (anemia stuff) improved, but there’s still for improvement. When we asked if the anemia could explain Brooke’s slower pace, the neonatologist opined that her apparent “slowness” might be more of a case of being outpaced by her overachieving little sister, so he wasn’t concerned.

From a logistical standpoint, having only one of them home complicates things because Kate and I can no longer visit the NICU or do other things at the same time; Claire can feed like a champ, but that doesn’t qualify her to be left home alone while we go visit Brooke. Before we brought her home, I had to do some last minute scrambling to obtain stuff we still thought we had plenty of time to get. We weren’t completely unprepared at home, but we still needed odds and ends like formula, some diapering accessories (cream, wipes, etc.), and mattresses for the cribs. I’m sure Kat wanted to join in the shopping and errand-running, but she was still only a few days removed from her cholecystectomy, so my goal was to get her to keep resting as much as possible. (No easy task.)

When we went to the NICU yesterday afternoon, it was much like our usual visits, except this time we took Claire with us when we left. I got the whole exit sequence from NICU, down the elevator, through the hallways, to the waiting car outside, on video. It was one continuous shot, like those dramatic long shots in the tv show, ER, (only without the drama). Some day, my lucky friends and family will get to watch and share the joy in excruciating detail. (Who has time to edit?)

Time has gotten a little blurry since Claire got home. I had hoped to go visit Brooke again last night, but the time and energy just weren’t there. Kat and I tag teamed taking care of Claire through the night, with Kat doing the lion’s share since sleep deprivation is a mental health risk for me. (That’s no joke, but the details are too long to get into here.) Between Claire’s and Kat’ activities and our whimpering whippets, I still didn’t get a ton of sleep, but I got more than Kat. She may have got the lion’s share of time spent taking care of Claire, but I did get the lion’s poop on my shift. I got it on my robe, on the boppy pillow, on Claire’s hands… I know dealing with a blown out diaper doesn’t make me special, but for the record, I’d like to note that I managed to handle it without waking up Mommy to help.

Claire has been strapped to me in a Moby Wrap while writing this, and I’m detecting the first signs of her impression of Audrey II from The_Little_Shop_of_Horrors, so it’s time to wrap this up. Hey, Claire, what should we say to these nice readers who are used to proper conclusions? Claire says, “Feed me.”