We didn't plan for this to happen

Finally Home

October 19, 2007

It feels like eleven weeks lasted a lifetime, but Cadence Snow is now in her rightful place, in our home. Finally our little nucleur family is complete.

After weeks away from my house, my hubbie, my four cats, living day in and day out in the hospital. I feel a little like I'm coming down from an incredibly long drinking jag. But I'm also blissful.

She has no respiratory or digestive abnormalities. She's been tested for mental retardation and passed with flying colors.We have to take her to the eye doc once a week, to the pediatrician several times a month, and back to KC in a couple of weeks for a follow up appointment. So we'll be shuttling the poor girl back and forth quite frequently.

She's a little redhead and has the temper to go along with it! Her screams reach ear-splitting decibels. I'm already reading to her, which is highly recommended by those in the pediatric field. Tonight I read her Rapunzel and Jack and the Beanstalk. She just sat in my lap and smiled and grunted. (Preemies grunt alot, but the nurses said Cadence grunts more than the average bear). I plan to expose her to a stimulating environment. Some preemies can have learning disabilities or fall behind in class. But working with them they can excell-just like any child. I'll teach her to read and write, about art and literature, and her papa can teach her math and science. She'll be a little whiz.

I still get paranoid (there's that word again) that she's going to stop breathing or get sick, but each day I feel more and more optimistic.I feel like we're on the home stretch. Once the problems with her eyes have resolved themselves, I'll take a heaving sigh of relief. But I won't have much time for it, because the little rugrat keeps me so busy.