Once we were all settled into UAB Medical center it was time to focus on getting Missy Libby breathing on her own.  We had one amazing nurse that was really aggressive and trying really hard to get Libby on the road to recovery.  Too bad we only had her a couple days. I remember walking in one morning and getting yelled at immediately by the new nurse for wearing my rings in the room.  I looked at Mike and once she was out of the room…. He said, “This is don’t going to work is it?”  She wasn’t our nurse for very long. J  We had a much better one replace her.   Hey spending 12+ hours in a hospital, I might as well get along with the nurse caring for my child. J

The days were so long and frustrating listening and watching monitors for over 12 hours a day’s starts to wear on a person.  Mike and I would take a break and go for walks around the hospital.  We needed to meet the lawyer one day.  I looked up the address and it didn’t look that far.  I convinced Mike we could walk.  Let’s just say it was a lot further then it looked on the map.  It was super-hot and not a breeze in sight.  We also walked through some not so great neighborhoods.   But we made it and got some extra exercise in that day!

So this whole time Libby was in the hospital for not being able to keep her oxygen levels up.  Most of the time she would dip down below 70.  So then they would have to increase the Oxygen again.  The goal was to have her maintain above 95 on her own.  Right around the 2 week mark Libby decided to give us just one more scare.  Her heart rate spiked to a crazy level (SVT).  This was a new noise for us to hear and about 3 nurses and a Doc come rushing in.  We were asked to step out of the room. Once again we are waiting in the waiting room and have no clue what is going on.   A little while later a nurse comes in to fill us in on what is going on.  She said they had to give Libby a drug called adenosine.  This drug basically stops and restarts the heart.  They had to give this to Libby 3 different times.  The nurse also said not to look that up, because we wouldn’t like what we would read.  We just needed to know that she is doing fine now.  Now with that having happened Libby was placed on a medicine called propranolol. This was help her heart maintain a slow and steady rate.  Bad news she can’t be taking off for at least a year.  Good news she can follow up with Dr. Fernadaz in Bismarck.

After dealing with the SVT it was about 4 days later and we finally told we can take our little Miss Libby home. By home I mean the hotel.  We once out of the hospital we had to wait for clearance to leave Alabama.  Our agency was on the ball and got the paper work done. But bad news is we have to wait for it to get to Montgomery, AL, to North Dakota then back again to Montgomery.  We asked if there was anything we could do to get things rolling.  We drove the paper work to Montgomery.  That saved us one whole day. The gal in the ND office was also very helpful and responded quickly. Two days later we were given the ok to fly HOME!!!!!!

Just one thing though. We needed to see a pediatrician before we could fly with Libby.  So we went back into Birmingham and met with a pediatrician.  Like everything else, nothing being easy.  The doctor thought her head seemed small and that he should run some test.  So we had to wait around and ran some test.  They wouldn’t get the results for weeks, but said we should definitely follow up with our doctors once we got home. We were finally given the go ahead to leave for good!

The emotions of finally being able to bring our new baby home was over whelming. I couldn’t wait to be surrounded by family and friends!!!  Mike and I kept listening to the song “I’m Coming Home”.