Wednesday, Dec 19

We had a good, productive day today. First of all, Addison has now met all of her grandparents. Grammy and Grandpa Taylor as well as Grans and Grandaddy Jumper are all here and ready to jump into action and use their special grandparent powers to do whatever is necessary for the girl. We will be using them for their "crying baby silencing" abilities, and their unique holding and kissing techniques to ensure that the kid will not have to go a single fraction of a second without receiving some kind of loving from someone in our house. We have also received special appearances from my sister and Rach's younger brother. Both of them are vying for the "favorite aunt/uncle" position, but we won't know who wins for sure for several years, so best of luck to the both of them and each of her other aunts and uncles.

We had seven different types of medical professionals meet with us all at once at our pow wow today, and we couldn't be happier with the results. At first, I kept thinking of the saying "how many monkeys does it take to...", but as the conversation progressed, I realized that we were having a productive conversation about what we needed Addison to accomplish for her to go home with us on Thursday. I can't even begin to describe how much stress has been lifted from our shoulders now that we know we are all on the same page. One of the concerns the doctors have is that Addison's oxygen saturation drops when she is sleeping at night. This is actually a common thing that happens to everyone, but considering her low muscle tone and the infection that she had to fight through, they just want to make sure she's good to go. So, tonight Addison is undergoing a sleep study to make sure that her oxygen saturation doesn't fall too low, and is still in an acceptable range. When oxygen drops too low, bad things happen, so we are happy that we are doing this now. The only other concern we have at this point is Addison's feeding. Again, because of her low muscle tone, due to her having down syndrome, sometimes she has a difficult time feeding. So, we need to make sure that there is a solid 24 hour period when she feeds well every time she eats. So far, so good. Addison is still having difficulty nursing from Rach, but the speech pathologist seems confident that as her muscles get stronger, this won't be an issue. She just needs a little more time to develop. She says the best way to build your suck-draw-swallow muscles is to suck-draw-swallow. Since Addison eats about a million times a day, I'm confident it won't take her too long to get this going.

The doctor says that as long as Addison accomplishes all of the above, she can come home with us tomorrow after her final dose of antibiotics. We are hoping for a 4:00 discharge, if not earlier. Just before Addison's sleep study began, we told her what she needed to accomplish so she can get out of the hospital tomorrow. Shortly thereafter, she slipped into her normal coma-like sleep to consider all that lies ahead. I've included a picture of her in deep thought for your reference. We will certainly let you know how she does tomorrow. We aren't out of the woods yet, but we are almost there.