Rose Is Home

Rose came home on Friday, March 6th. Ellen ended up back in the hospital that day and night, because of high blood pressure, but she was able to come home Saturday afternoon and join our beautiful baby.

She is doing very well. Her sleeping schedule is, of course, a little different than ours, so we're suffering from some sleep deprivation, but really, so far it hasn't been that bad. If we can feed her and get her to bed around midnight, she's been waking up just once around 3am, and then sleeping again until 7 or so. Or a couple of times it's been more like feedings at 1am, 5am, and 9am, but either way, with Ellen and I trading off we've been able to get at least a little bit of rest, which has been good.

We look forward to each day that we spend with her, as she continues to grow and change. The other kids love her, and are doing really well with her so far. A little in her face at times, but really as good as we could have expected from them. Even Bridget just watches her in fascination with a huge grin on her face, like she's some kind of animated doll.

Rose Katherine

So, after much debate, we have decided on the spelling of Rose's middle name - we're going with the "K", for Katherine. There is definitely some debate about how my grandmother’s name was really spelled (it was C on her son Jack’s birth certificate and her marriage certificate, but K on her husband's death certificate, in the family tree book, and on her gravestone); we think it might have been C officially, but that was either a mistake when she was born or she just liked the K better. Either way, it seems clear that SHE spelled it that way, so we went with that. Plus, I like that the initial “K” sounds like my grandmother's nickname, Kay, and a couple of people pointed out that Rose C. sounds like “Rosie”, which I don’t like as much (although it seems inevitable that some people will call her that anyway, and I've even caught myself doing it a couple of times). So that, plus 90% of you saying you liked the “K” better, and we went with it. I think Ellen still prefers the "C" better, for what it's worth, but since Rose is her grandmother's name, she kindly deferred to me on the middle name.

Lastly, an update on Rose's health. She is doing great, but because she had some oxygen saturation problems over the weekend, the hospital has decided to keep her for observation, probably for the rest of the week. We were sorry to leave the hospital without her, but we're glad that she is getting good care, and will feel much more comfortable when we do get her home knowing that she is strong and healthy. She has been moved to a hospital closer to us, so that will make it much easier to visit while she stays in the special care nursery for the next few days.

Pictured: Rose with her grandmother, and her very proud big sister.