There's No Place Like Home

Yes friends. After 6 days in the hospital, my Ava Grace was discharged last night. The dr came in at 3:30, and said that Ava was doing well, she was eating and had great bowel sounds, and there was nothing that they could do there that we couldn't do at home. 

She said she needed to get the surgeon to come up to remove the tube in Ava's chest, and I asked her if it was going to happen before 4pm. An amazing lady named Christy was watching my girls, and I told her that I would pick them up at 5. Her husband works with my husband, and I hate the idea of watching my kids was going to interfere with family time when her husband gets home at 5:15. The dr said she'd find out and let us know. 

The surgeon comes in at 3:40 (yay for small favors, at least we weren't waiting around for 7 hours for him like the day before) and pulled out her tube. Ava of course was upset and screaming, I hate those parts. We were told that she needed to stay there an hour to watch for bleeding, so I texted Christy and she said it was fine for the girls to stay. I was extremely thankful, because if they couldn't, then I'd have to drive 40 minutes to go pick them up, and then 40 minutes back to pick up Jake and Ava, and then 40 minutes to go home.

So right at 4:40, after changing the gauze since she was still bleeding a bit, we signed the papers and we able to go home. Ava fell right asleep in the car. We got home, hubby made grilled chicken and green beans (SO sick of eating out), Ava went to bed at 7pm, and I went to bed at 8pm. 

I'll tell you this now that it's all over. There was a part of me that was convinced that somehow this was my fault. Not that I can cause her to have adhesions from her gastroschisis. But when she was trying to throw up, and they said her bowels were obstructed. I was convinced that I did something wrong, and that's why she was in pain. Like I didn't vacuum enough, or she ate too many dust bunnies or a Polly Pocket dress, or something. It wasn't until after surgery, and her surgeon said it was adhesions related to her gastroschisis, that I finally stopped blaming myself. So not only was I dealing with the stress of almost losing my daughter, I was internally beating myself up, thinking it was my fault. Seems silly now, maybe it's a mom thing. You always just want to keep your kids out of harm and pain, and you feel so helpless when you can't. 


Thank you for your prayers, the emails and comments there were far too numerous for me to reply back to all.

We had friends that kept us company in the surgery waiting room, had people come up to stop by for a short visit and bring candy, drinks, cupcakes, gas gift cards, presents for Ava. Girlfriends who watched my older kids so we could focus on Ava. All of those things made a horrible situation just a little bit easier.