Mouse is home!

We brought Anna home from the hospital this afternoon.  It's great to have her home, but a little sad that we had to leave Evelyn behind for a while longer.

Also, it's just a little bit terrifying not to have her hooked up to an oximeter.  I find myself wondering what her oxygen saturation is right now.  And right now.  And right now.  Of course, after this much time in the NICU and SCN staring at monitors, I'm sometimes distracted wondering what my sats are.  And those of all the strangers I meet.  It seems like criminal medical negligence that we don't all have oximeters on at all times.  There should be large blue numbers floating above all of our heads.  99.  98.  100.  100.  97.  78!  Get that man to a hospital!  Or just poke him until he remembers to breathe again; I'm not sure what you do with an adult to treat a desat.  Probably administer caffeine.

We had a bit of a kerfuffle (as Christine would call it) at the hospital today.  First there was a controversy over whether Anna had been carseat tested yet.  Her chart said "yes," but all of the nurses said "no."  So they did it again -- or for the first time, whichever -- an hour in our fancy new Italian carseat hooked up to the monitor, to prove that the body positioning of the carseat wouldn't inhibit respiration or circulation.  She passed with flying colors, although unlike her sister she got cranky at the half-hour mark, thereby establishing a radius of free movement from our house.

But when we put her back into the seat to take her home, one of the nurses opined that the straps were in the wrong position for a newborn of her size.  I was holding Evelyn at the time, so Ginger and about three nurses crowded around Anna in her carseat, working on getting her positioned just right, putting folded and rolled up towels all around her.  And they still weren't satisfied -- the shoulder straps entered the seat too high up, and there appeared to be no way to string them into the seat through any lower holes (as was our experience with our prior infant carrier carseats).  Verdict:  This carseat was unsuitable for a newborn of Anna's size, and we therefore wouldn't be allowed to take her home in it.  There was much tut-tutting about the sloppy design of a carseat that couldn't be made proper for a newborn.

This struck me as odd, because the particular strap problem they noted would have made the carseat unsuitable for any baby under, say, 15 lbs, and you can't really make much money selling a carseat to babies between 15 and 22 lbs -- even Italian ones -- no matter how beautifully designed it may be.  Nevertheless, we resigned ourselves to sending me back to Lullaby Lane today to return the carseat and express our outrage at being snookered by the purveyors of these fancy Italian $150 infant carriers that were good for nothing.  I would tell them where they could put their beautifully designed but nevertheless fundamentally defective Italian-made infant carrier, and I would buy a good old-fashioned Chinese-made $150 infant carrier in its place, thank you very much.

As I picked up the infant carrier to storm off to Lullaby Lane, I looked at the underside, and noticed a red handle that seemed to serve no obvious purpose.  There was no such handle on our old infant carrier.  So I did what comes naturally -- I pulled it.  (Well, actually, I admit that first I pushed it, but when that changed nothing, I thought "Aha!" and pulled it instead.)  As if by some kind of strange magic, the entire interior of the carseat shifted smoothly downward on some kind of hidden guillotine mechanism, bringing the entry point of the straps seamlessly down to newborn shoulder height.  (Odd that they don't sell it in that position, but whatever.  Maybe they think American babies are all monstrously large.)  The nurses all oohed and aahed -- not at my technical prowess, but at how slick the carseat design turned out to be.  That makes a lot more sense than re-stringing the upper straps through holes, they said.  And so it does.  Of course, if the experience of Fiat and Alfa Romeo owners is to be credited, we can expect the carseat will soon be sitting in a cloud of steam and smoke by the side of the road, looking as beautiful as ever -- perhaps more beautiful for its flaws.

But for now, we're grateful that the carseat did not present a barrier to our beautiful little Anna coming home, where she belongs.  Feel free to stop by if you're in the neighborhood.  Our hygiene standards are much lower than the NICU's.  In fact, you may even be asked to lactate.