Home at Last!!

We had a very efficient discharge this morning and were home by 2 pm. We had a small family coming home celebration with Ethan's parents and Lauren's mother who is in town to help us out with things; it is always a blessing to have her staying with us. Caroline is ecstatic that her little brother is finally home, but to her chagrin Liam has been sleeping most of the afternoon. Tonight will be an early night for all of us as we come down from the past two weeks. A few pictures from the day are below.

Liam is ready to leave the hospital in his car seat. The wink shows his attitude toward the past two weeks - "I got this."

Ethan's parents had an ice cream cake waiting for Liam when they got home. Spelling and capitalizatoin are not prerequisites for working at Baskin Robbins, but the cake sure is delicious!

In only a few short days since being taken off of sedation, we have noticed a stark increase in Liam's alertness. We had heard that this would be the case, but witnessing the difference is amazing. Here he is back in his bouncer seat once again.

Finally, our first family portrait as a family since Liam returned home. With te exception of Caroline, we're all looking a bit tired today.

We really appreciate all of you following our blog and sharing your well wishes and prayers for Liam's successful surgery. Knowing that we had so many people out there who were pulling for our little guy made us feel a little bit better about sending Liam into such a major surgery. We also want to thank everyone at Childrens National Medical Center in DC. The nursing staff made us feel as comfortable as one can feel in such a situation, particulary those nurses in the CICU who held constant vigil over Liam while he recovered. The cardiology team at Childrens was great also. Each played a vital role in getting Liam strong enough for surgery. Finally, we give a special thanks to the surgical team led by Dr. Richard Jonas. It does give you some confidence and comfort knowing that you have one of the premiere pediatric cardiology surgeons in the world taking care of your son in the operating room. He saved our son's life and we are forever in debt to him.

We are going to be posting to this blog less frequently now that we are home and we try to get back to a normal routine. We will keep you all updated on how Liam progresses over the coming months as he goes to follow up appointments with the surgeon and cardiology.

Tomorrow Liam will be two months old. What we have learned from him and been through with him already has been incredible to say the least. We are over the moon to know that now we will have many years ahead of us with both of our children.