Homecoming

After 6 long weeks in the hospital, I am home.  The kids were so sweet on Monday - they had put balloons all over the house and made me "Welcome home mommy" signs. They hung them everywhere and they were SO excited.  I missed them so much.  Even though I was seeing them every day, it seems like they've grown up on me.  They all look older, and listening to them talk they sound older.  It's amazing how much difference
6 weeks makes when they're this little.  They've been snuggling with me on the couch and in my bed, and have been so sweet and concerned about me.  Except Silas - he's actually sick.  I feel so bad for him, he looks pitiful.  Mom has been carrying him around for 2 days.  He doesn't really want me - he wants her, which I would expect after the last few weeks.  It's probably better anyway, because I don't want to get the little ones sick, but it's sort of hard having your baby not want you when he's sick.

Which leads me to this next observation - being home is sort of surreal.  When I left I was pregnant, I came home not pregnant, but not with babies, and even though I was gone for so long, looking back on it, it went by pretty fast.  So I can't figure out which part feels like the dream - where I was in the hospital, or now.  It all seems sort of jumbled.  It's also weird, because the house is a little .... different... some furniture was rearranged, so things that need to go someplace are just sort of laying all over the house.  No one was sure where to put them, and to be honest, I don't even know what to do with it.  But normally living this way would be sure to drive me crazy in a short amount of time and right now, it's just adding to the surreality of this situation.  Surprisingly, at least for now, I don't feel stressed out about it.  Which that might be adding to the weirdness, too.   The only thing I've even attempted to "fix" since I got home was that I let Ansley know that she was going to stop wearing her headbands out in public, and she would be getting her hair fixed again.  I know that is completely superficial, and of all the things going on at the bottom of the list.  I have made fun of myself for this already, I guess it's the only thing in disarray I can do anything about right now, and so I'm on it.  Like white on rice. 

Recovery-wise I guess I'm doing well.  I ended up getting a spinal headache, which was terrible.  It didn't start until Sunday night, so they were hesitant to call it a spinal one, and so I went home with it, and then it got better and then worse again, and finally last night I was starting to feel nauseated and so I self-diagnosed myself, and called the doctor back and we went in and got a blood patch.  So now I feel great, but in order to ensure that I don't require a second patch, the anesthesiologist suggested I lay flat for two or three days as much as possible.  So that's what I'm doing.  I also feel like someone hit me across the back with a 2X4 where they did the patch, so now I'm taking my pain meds for that and not the incision.  By the weekend all should be well.