Boy, I'm glad that that's over!

Yesterday was crazy! I was extremely disappointed, of course, when Lydia didn't get to come home on Thursday like we had hoped and that had put me pretty close to the edge of my already shaky emotions but I got through it! But when I went in yesterday morning and found Lydia out from underneath the phototherapy lights and the pediatrician said that she could go home after her blood was drawn at noon, I was ecstatic. Spent some time with her yesterday morning and was present while her hearing was retested -- over the moon to find out that she has passed her hearing test in both ears! Left while they had the nursery closed to visiting because of the drs doing rounds and planned to come back ready to feed her and change her after her noon blood draw so she'd be ready to go. On my way out, I reminded them that she hadn't had her car seat test yet....[Side note: when a baby is born before 37 weeks, they are tested in their car seats. They're strapped in with a pulse ox monitor on their foot to measure their heart rate and oxygen saturation while they sit in the car seat for 1 hour. If their heart rate and/or o2 stat drops at any point, that's considered a "failed" car seat test.] The possibility of her failing was completely off my radar. John and Timothy -- both smaller than her -- had both had zero trouble with their car seat tests so I expected the same from her. In fact, I didn't even think to ask what would happen or what it would mean if she had failed her test. In case you can't figure out where this is going.....I was blown away when I got back up there at noon to be told that she had failed her test. Sat down to feed her thinking they were just going to retest after she was done eating. Took her back out there after her bottle and told them I'd step out for a while so they could retest her. That's when my day fell apart. I was told that they only did car seat retests after 24 hours had passed meaning another night in the hospital. I completely lost it! (You can blame some of it on the hormones, too, I'm sure!) Anyway, seeing me in distress, they decided to page the pediatrician to come talk to me. Just about laughed when he asked me how I was doing. Are you kidding me?!? Sitting here in front of you bawling and you're asking me how I'm doing?!? Anyway....since she was a larger-than-normal newborn and had no breathing problems, and since I had already made plans to go home, they agreed to a retest at 4 pm and even made arrangements with social workers for us to buy what's called a car bed (think bassinet that straps into your car with a seat belt) so that we could take her home yesterday evening regardless of her 2nd car seat test. I was still a mess but still relieved. She survived and passed the 2nd car seat test with only 1 little glitch and that was a full 40 minutes into the test (and only Jonathan & I saw the numbers go down and were thankful no alarms went off!). So around 5 we started clipping off hospital alarms and bands and getting her dressed. The nurse sent Jonathan to get the car. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong!!!! Jonathan calls me 10 minutes later, "Can't get the car to start"! Okay, seriously, how did this day go so wrong? Long(er) story short(er), called Candace to come and get me and Lydia and take us home and Jonathan called our friend Damon to come and help him with his car. He's out now replacing his starter. Other than a massive headache around 7:30 last night, Lydia and I are doing just fine and actually had a decent night as she slept 4 hours between bottles! She's just been to our pediatrician for the first time and has had another bilirubin blood draw and we're waiting on the results. As long as they haven't gone back up, we're in the clear. If they've gone back up, then we can put her on what's called a Wallaby blanket here at home for today and tomorrow and try another lab draw on Monday but that's highly unlikely. Thinking about maybe going to church tomorrow but aren't sure yet. Of course, bad test results would nip that in the bud real quick but that'd be okay, too. But for now, I'm just thankful to be home, to be feeling like a "normal" mom again, and to be getting ready to feed my kids some lunch! Hopefully we'll have a good news update here soon.