I started the day out with a great house-planning convo with mom, followed by morning cares with Tess and 3 of our favorites! Jamie, a nurse practitioner, designated herself one of our primaries – which we love because she’s fun, excellent at what she does, and keeps us informed and calm. Allie, who lived in Wisconsin for a few months (and needs to go back and see what she missed by living in Waterloo!), is trained as a nurse practitioner (NNP) and works as a nurse. Again, lucky us! She’s spunky, full of great advice from a mom/nurse/development perspective, and is totally into inspiring kids from day 1. Some of you may have guessed that I’m a little inspired by learning. Ahem. We get along great. Rounding up the trio was Denise again – woo! All of us cackled and yakked in the corner for an hour, talking about Tess, how awesome our birth parents are, family stories – you name it.

It’s so heartwarming to us to feel like we’re making friends here. Not superficial ‘be nice to people’ friends, but honest, heart-to-heart relationships with Kat and Spencer and Kat’s family, the nurses and NNPs, the Ronald McDonald staff and residents, other families…our first week here was so isolating and confusing and exhausting that we felt the whole 3 months would be like that – which exhausted us further just to think about!

Not only do we feel that Tess is being well cared for, we feel we are being well-cared for. That actual nurturing happens from the House, where we get a smile and a doughnut on the way out the door, to the hospital, where we get hugs on bad days and expert crisis management when it’s needed. That means we were prepared for Tess to get sick, we knew what was happening and what could happen all the way through, and weren’t told how scary it was until it was well past. not that we were misled at all! They just didn’t tell us how worried they were until she got past the scary bits. To top off that masterful parent guidance, they’re fun! And nice, and entertaining. I know I wax poetic about this group, but we really feel like we’re in an amazing hospital with a stellar group of people. That kudos belongs entirely to Kat and Spencer. 🙂

So today we managed to watch our first tv show since Tess came. Tiny, tiny pleasures. Followed by huge pleasure: we get to hold Tess twice a day! They say not to get too excited, as it will stop if she’s loses weight or has trouble breathing, but yay! So we’re changing the schedule yet again, now holding from 7:30pm til 9pm cares. We’re learning to enjoy the step forward and not worry about steps back until they happen, so here’s hoping the forward march continues. 🙂