After 103 days in the hospital, 117 days if you include the time spent inside Lara inside the hospital, Katarina came home today. She is right now sitting on the couch getting a feed from Lara after a big tandem cry session with her sister. And no, they were not cries of happiness at being reunited, they were cries of hunger and over tiredness. I’m not sure they really realize each other exist yet 🙂

She ended up coming home with a nasal-gastric (NG) tube as she couldn’t make the feed volumes required through the bottle. She needed about 70mL per feed (7-8 feeds per day) but usually only managed ~50mL so I inserted a NG tube yesterday to allow her to make up the difference. Yes, that’s correct, I did it. Of all the things I never thought I’d be doing to my children that is pretty high on the list. And if you had asked me before all this started whether I would be fine with that outcome then I would have had to think about the answer, but right now, of course, I am perfectly happy with it…because it means Katarina is now home.

We took a bunch of video. Here is Katarina being disconnected from the monitoring system (http://youtu.be/uIyngUSEqvE), breaking out of the ISCU (http://youtu.be/OJydsgqifh8) and coming home (http://youtu.be/XrKpJFsJcNE). Obviously more to follow, when we have time, maybe a couple of years from now 😉

Natasha, Katarina, Lara and I want to give a big shout out to their girlfriends still in the NICU:  Ellie (bug) and her mum Megan, and the twins Lola and Emilia and their proud parents, Kim and Albert. You are amazingly resilient, we are thinking of you all, and looking forward to the day that your girls break out and turn their faces away from the intense glow of the sun for the first time!