We haven’t posted lately and I can’t believe we didn’t share the most important milestone – we are home!  We flew early morning on July 27th.  Eric and I both slept through our alarms (we had to be up by 3 AM) so we rushed to the airport.  Can you imagine if we missed the most important flight?  The flight was uneventful after that, Aiden handled it very well.  A lot of people commented about how small he was and I think that’s because most people don’t bring their newborns on a flight…

My good friend, Lauren, picked us up from the airport and my coworkers (and friends) cleaned the house and hung a garland to welcome Aiden home.  They baked a cake (!) and gave gifts.  I’m continuously overwhelmed by people’s kindness.

Eric and I spent the last few weeks spring cleaning and building back up the yard and garden.  Our cat is thrilled we are home and she’s getting attention.  We have settled into a routine now with Aiden.  One great thing about the NICU is all the training it provided for us.  He’s on a feeding and sleeping schedule, every 3 hours like clockwork.

As for his follow-up care, we already visited our pediatrician and she referred us to specialists:

• Blood Pressure – The nephrologist we visited at UCLA put Aiden on hypertension medication to lower his blood pressure.  She took his BP twice while he was resting and it was still high.  We have to give him oral medication twice a day to manage it.  She said most babies grow out of it.
• Opthomology – Aiden has a small line in his left eye, barely stage 1 of Retinopathy of Prematurity.  Stage 3 is when laser surgery is required to prevent these blood vessels from pulling the retina off the eye.  The ophthalmologist thinks this line will fade on its own and not affect Aiden’s eyesight.  We have a follow-up appointment in 3 weeks.
• Urology – Scheduled for this Friday.  Sorry little guy.  The Canadians don’t do this unless there’s a health concern.

He weighed 7.7 pounds in early August, we’ll know his weight again at our next pediatrician appointment in September.

We are home and happy.