MARY CATE IS A NICU GRADUATE!

MARY CATE IS A NICU GRADUATE!

Let me start of this blog by apologizing for my screaming (at least that is what people tell me it means when you write in all caps). Also please apologize to anyone around you that you may have scared when you screamed and leaped for joy after reading this stupendous news (because I know the check clerk at Babies”R”Us will never be the same after hearing my wife scream when the NICU nurse told her). Yes it is true at 9:30 pm central time Mary Cate Mustaine took the long trip from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit on the 4th Floor of Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital to the Pediatric Unit on the 5th Floor (which is where Brigit and I have been staying for the last couple of weeks). The trip was uneventful except for the utter hurricane of emotions going through Mom and Dad who were just minutes away from being left alone with there baby for the first time in her short two months of being on this earth. Just a side note here, they really don’t give any kind of test or quiz or much of anything to prove you are able to handle being responsible for the life of your baby. This truth is never more evident when the door closes behind the nurse after she says see you in 3 hours for the next feeding (in my head I’m thinking are you kidding me, you all have done such a good job over the last three months to keep my beautiful daughter alive and your handing her over to me and I could ruin that in roughly 3 hours.) All I am saying is there should be a test or something. Despite my utter incompetence at being a good dad I am happy to report that MC is still alive and doing very well after one full night with only parental supervision and nurse help.

I am sorry again, (I got side tracked with the big news) I know you want to know how we got here. Last report MC was coming out of surgery and doing OK. Well surgery was the platform that MC needed to springboard herself into overdrive. She started improving on her breathing right after surgery and shortly after that the doctors let her start eating again and both went so well they told us yesterday that she would go to Peds if there was enough room but there just wasn’t. Until Gods glorious hand came down and let someone from Peds go home. That is when we got the call that MC was moving upstairs. So for those keeping score at home Mary Cate as we speak has no O2 needs, No IV needs and No restrictions on food (for the people like me who don’t understand that last sentence that means absolutely no tubes, whatsoever).

So that is how MC got to be upstairs in Peds and living with her Mom & Dad full time now. We are probably a couple more weeks from coming home but we are in a really neat place right now of being able to care for our daughter in tangible ways that we couldn’t do before. We know this only possible by God’s grace and your prayers. So we give Him praise and you all our heart felt thanks for praying MC through this stage of her life. Thanks again.