William at home

Loving being home

William has been going pretty well in the last week. The main issue for us was the fact that his vomiting was increasing significantly. For a while he was vomiting every time he was fed and he was not gaining weight very well. He seemed to be irritated by the nasogastric tube so we took out the long term tube and put in a short term one which he seemed to like a bit better.
We had a routine appointment with Mark de Souza, our paediatrician in Nowra who was pretty happy with how William was going. His oxygen saturations were good when we checked them (for the first time since leaving hospital). He has his two month vaccinations on Friday. We are all getting influenza vaccinations ourselves. We have been warned that if William gets a cold, it will really knock him about and may tip his respiratory function over the edge.
We are loving being home as a family and life is beginning to take on a more normal feel. Olivia and Thomas are fantastic with William. Their love and care for him is amazing.

Good progress so far

Today William travelled to Sydney Children's Hospital to see Dr Steve Cooper for his first follow-up appointment since his discharge. He has put on over 300 grams since we arrived home and there were no real signs that his heart was not coping at this stage. Steve performed another echocardiogram and declared that he was pretty happy with his condition so far. Even though we knew that he was going fine, it was a relief that William's cardiologist also felt the same.
On our way out of the hopsital we grabbed a copy of this week's 'The Bulletin' magazine. It carried a story about William and his prenatal aortic valvuloplasty. There was a banner on the cover proclaiming "Medical Exclusive: Mending a broken heart" and a good article outlining what happened. We were quite excited to read the article and it focused our thankfulness of how far we have come with our little boy. Have a look at the article (and some more photos of William) by clicking on this link.

Going home

Tonight William sleeps in his own bassinette, on his own sheets, in his own little suit and with his own family. We are finally home, fifty three days after William's birth and eight weeks after leaving home.
His echocardiogram, chest x-ray and blood tests were all satisfactory yesterday and we were given the all clear to leave. Today we woke early and began packing up the clothes and other various accumulations at Ronald McDonald House. We had to collect a feeding pump and bags, ensure that we had enough syringes, litmus paper, nasogastric tubes, buy some duocal (the calorie supplement to mix with the breast milk). We had to of course thank everyone on Edgar Stephen Ward and it seemed that chocolates and a card were really not enough. We took William around to Grace Ward and PICU to thank them as well before walking out of the hospital and down to Ronald McDonald House for a a quick goodbye.
We set up a pump in the car so he could have a feed on the way home and struck out from Westmead to our home. It was dark and rainy but was an absolutely wonderful trip. Our whole family we to be back together again.
William handled the trip very well and we were quite excited to be able to open the door and tell him "welcome to your home!"
Liza's mum, Marea was looking after 'Liv and Tom when we got home and my mum and dad popped in for a visit. We were very glad to see them as only two days ago they had been in a very scary car accident and escaped serious injury or worse by the skin of their teeth.
So William settled down for the night with both his parents and his grandparents watching over him and his brother and sister asleep in the room next to him.
We are utterly exhausted but still a bit excited. We were discussing the fact that in the eight weeks since all being home, we could have had a pretty nice holiday. It was no vacation but walking out of the hospital holding William today beats any two month sojourn in an exotic or luxurious destination.