Saying Goodbye To Our In-Patient Stay...

Yesterday morning, Jeni was officially discharged from the antepartum unit. Before we both start developing post-antepartum depression, we'd like to leave you with this list.

The Top Ten Things The Pipers Will Miss (Or Not Miss So Much) About the St. Joe's Antepartum Unit:
...Part annoying, part quirky, part comical, part gut-wrenching, the hospital stay was above all a touching experience for us both. We hope you enjoy both the roast and toast to the hospital stay below. In some cases we will not really miss the stay (as I'm sure you'll be able to guess), but in other cases, particularly those involving the caring people at St. Joe's, we already miss our time there.

The Top Ten Things The Pipers Will Miss (Or Not Miss So Much) About the St. Joe's Antepartum Unit:

10. The lack of FSN Wisconsin
As a die-hard Brewer fan, this was a definite bummer. The hospital had the Chapel and Relaxation Channel, (which is not featured on our Time Warner Cable package at home), but no FSN to watch the Brew Crew.

9. The Pull-Out Chair.
For the past two weeks I have become well acquainted with the pull-out chair. While life could be much worse, my bed felt great last night. Thank God for the Themarest camping mattress which I slept on many a night in the hospital.

8. The Styrofoam Cups.
This made me a little sad that there was quite so much waste in the hospital, especially involving the use of styrofoam cups. Jeni and I both began brining our own water containers after the first day as the thought of throwing that much stuff away really didn't set well with us.

7. People walking into the room without knocking whenever they so chose.
This ranged from food service people, (who walked in with a tray of bagels yesterday while Jeni was "making food for the babies"), to doctors, nurses, the resident doctor, nursing students, the chapelin, social worker and other hospital staff. At least most of the visitors who came to see Jeni did the polite thing and knocked first.

6. The Shower
As you learned from an earlier post, the shower was certainly a hit-or-miss experience, being very hot or very cold. Unfortunately it only got fixed right before Jeni gave birth.

5. The Breakfast Experience
Those of you who have experienced the frustration of having your fast-food order prepared improperly need only to think about that experience daily and you have a brief glimpse of dining here at St. Joe's. Everything from missing coffee cups and utensils to missing items and brown bananas were part of this thrilling dining adventure. In reality, I know that there are far more important things to think about in a hospital than food service, but some of the goof ups just got rather comical. If nothing else, the dining experience was always worth a good laugh, and made our not-so-brown banana taste all the yummier today.

4. "Philip" the Baby Monitor
In a weird way, since Hope and Grace's birth it was quiet in Jeni's room- almost too quiet. I missed hearing Philip's gentle beeps and watching him spit out the babies' heart rates. We both owe a lot to ol' Philip. If it wasn't for his watchful monitoring, who knows? Despite the blue goo and constant game of chase the babies (which we now understand as they are both super squirmy out of the womb), we owe a great debt to the monitor which made Jeni look like a cyborg.

3. The doctors
We are continually impressed with the wonderful team we have supporting our baby girls. Being in the hospital allowed us to hear first hand from our doctors just about daily, and in some cases multiple times a day. This was a real blessing for some worrisome new parents. The compassion that Jeni's doctor showed me before she delivered the babies will never be forgotten (I'll get more into this when I post the birth story later on).

2. The Nurses
While the doctors do a great job, our hats are off to the wonderful nursing staff in the antepartum unit. They made me feel at home and were fun to talk Brewers with, but more importantly treated Jeni with such compassion and care. Monitoring babies 24 hours a day is a daunting task and thanks to such kind folks as Patty, Nancy, Lynn, Sam and Yuilia, among others, we were able to avoid what could have been a disastrous situation.

1. Our Girls
Leaving our girls in the NICU yesterday made us both a bit more than a little misty-eyed. When one thinks about starting a family, the image of dad taking mom and the baby/babies home may often come to mind. Yesterday, while I brought home my best friend and person who I could not fathom going through this experience without, we did not travel back to Fox Point with our little darlings. Thank God we live fairly close and will be able to visit our babies daily. At 8:30 last evening, we had the urge to go and wish them goodnight and did exactly that, reading them Jeni's favorite children's book, Goodnight Moon. We know that we will have a long stay in the NICU, but that this will make Hope and Grace's homecoming all the more sweet.