Back home, one week on

We have now been home a week and have started to settle back into a normal routine once again.  Within 48 hours of coming home, the feeding tube was accidentally pulled out (by Louise rather than Jessica though) and we thought we’d see how Jessica got on overnight as she was taking the bottle reasonably well.  Unfortunately, she would only take a two-hourly amount which meant for a very unsettled night for everyone before the community nurse came and replaced the tube again in the morning.

We had a routine check-up at Oxford on Friday afternoon and had an echo which showed good heart function and Jessica’s saturation levels have also been good.  However, when we arrived home from our appointment, we discovered that Jessica had pulled her feeding tube out on the journey home and so we had to take a trip to Wexham Park hospital to have the tube put back in once again!  Hopefully once she no longer needs to be on Monogen, she will take enough milk not to need the tube and we won’t keep having to replace it!  On the plus side, she is gaining weight well and is now up to 5690g (12lb 8oz).

It has been quite a sociable week with Jessica attending two birthday meals (one for Mummy’s birthday last Wednesday and then again today for our friend Sarah’s birthday) and being back at baby groups once again.  There is now a more noticeable difference between Jessica and other babies her age, particularly with regard to motor skills such as rolling, sitting and crawling which isn’t too surprising given her time in hospital and we have been reassured that she should catch up soon.

Overall, she is doing incredibly well and is as happy and smiley as ever.  It is exactly a year today since our appointment at Great Ormond Street Hospital where we were told that Jessica was unlikely to be suitable for surgery and was likely to only survive for a few hours, and we sat in the hospital chapel praying desperately for a miracle.  Now we have a beautiful eight-month old daughter who has survived several operations and brings us so much joy and we thank God every day for giving us the miracle we prayed for and blessing us with our little girl.  God is truly awesome!