Duran Duran... & Duran: Going home...finally!

After almost a week at the hospital in Fort Worth, we finally got to go home! This was one of our many nurses who took exceptional care of us!

We were super glad to be leaving! We went to the hospital on Sunday night about midnight and began induction then. I immediately began having really consistant contractions every two minutes but with no effect. Finally, Tuesday evening, the doctors that were seeing me decided to go ahead and do the c-section and wha-la! Owen arrived. All was well until Thursday night when a huge line of storms moved through the area. Several areas of Fort Worth got hit really hard with hail and one tornado was spotted. The hospital activated their "Code Gray" system because of the severe weather. A nurse came by telling everyone to close the blinds and move everyone to the far side of the room. Several minutes later we were instructed to leave our room and move out into the hall. Owen happened to be visiting us from the nursery then, so he hung out with us in the hall. I wish I had a picture of me during all of this because they told us we might be leaving, so I was wearing my hospital gown, Aaron's house shoes and Aaron's coat. I looked rediculous! A few minutes later they came by handing out really heavy blankets to protect the babies and told us to plan who would carry him in case we had to evacuate! It's getting kind of serious at this point! Then nurses came by and took all of the babies to the nursery to better care for them there in case something happened. Alot of people were freaking out! Some women had just come out of delivery and were in the hallway in their beds with their IV's in and everything. I talked to a nurse in labor and delivery and she said that everyone there had to be moved out of their rooms to the central nurses station. Imagine that!!! Whether you were pushing or not..."Out in the hall you go!" It ended up that all we got was some heavy rain, and eventually we returned to our rooms.

By Friday, Owen became a little jaundiced which meant he would be staying at least another day to get the photo therapy. On Saturday morning, the pediatrician seeing Owen detected a heart murmer and they did an ultrasound of his heart to see exactly what it was. We had to wait for the results of that, but Saturday evening they finally said we could all go home. Because of the severe weather, the hospital policy is to test all of their emergency systems a day or two later. Well that ended up happening right when we were trying to leave. So all of the emergency doors were shut, the elevators didn't work, fire alarms are going off, lights are flashing, and the whole second floor with all of the babies was totally locked down. Aaron had gone to the truck to get some things and couldn't get back in. The nurses were all laughing becuase we finally were allowed to leave and then we couldn't get out!! Instead of rolling me out in a wheel chair like they do with every new mother, I had to walk down the back stairwell to leave! Talk about an ending to a crazy story!