Home At Last!!

We have all safely arrived home!

Anna was discharged Sunday at midnight, and we had had to leave Rachel behind in ICU. We were planning on visiting her on Monday morning back at the hospital, and as we were preparing to leave, the nurse called and told us we could take Rachel home too! (I think I hurt the nurse's ear over the phone with my unrestrained "Yahoooo!") After visiting with several other parents whose babies were in NICU for WEEKS, we are grateful to be able to take our baby home after only 5 days. We’re finally together as a family of 4 -- Wow!

Anna is on "phototherapy," a treatment which helps her body clean her blood until her liver function catches up. They sent us home with an in-crib BiliLamp for this purpose. This will not be a long-term problem. Enjoy the UFO picture :)

Both girls are still learning how to breast-feed (their suck and swallow reflexes are weak), so we're in an intensive stage of constant coaxing, pleading, jostling, cheering the babies to learn this new skill. It takes some time, and a lot of patience. But we’re VERY thankful to the Lord for Mary’s above-average-for-this-stage-in-the-game production, and the lactation consultants at Northside have been amazing. I'm immensely proud of Mary for her perseverance and patience at what could be a very frustrating experience. And she's doing all this while recovering from surgery! Anna and Rachel need to gain some weight (they're still under 5 pounds), and we're charting their daily intake and progress like a couple of statisticians on Starbucks.

Thanks for praying for us and our little angels. I'm sorry I can't respond individually to all your emails yet. And I’m sorry that the girls are still too weak to accept visitors -- we’re not allowed to hold them much between feedings because they need to sleep deeply in order to grow! And we are trying to sleep as much as we can between feedings, too. Please know that you are greatly loved and cared for and look forward to having people over to love on them when they’re stronger!


Several of you have offered to bring food, which would be very helpful. Our 3 moms are rotating helping us with the babies, but when they’re here, it’s all hands on deck, and there’s no time to grocery shop or cook. Mary’s stepmother Gail will be coordinating our meals, and since she has a spare fridge/freezer, and ours is small, it’d be great if you would contact her and drop food off at her house (only 10 min from our house).

Her contact info is:
Gail Chambliss 770-552-7344
alpc@bellsouth.net
You can Mapquest directions to her house: 155 River Point Court Alpharetta, GA 30022

In gratitude,
Adam, Mary, Anna and Rachel Hoyt (I just love the sound of that, don't you?)