After two long weeks, Julia was finally discharged from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics on Thursday May 30th. What a great 2 week birthday gift! The last few days were very busy as all the doctors and therapists were in and out doing their final check ups on Julia. She was doing great off her oxygen, she had been doing well off her seizure medicine since Monday, and she passed her hearing test. The physical therapist noticed a little tightness in her arms but the rest of her was great!

Being at home has been a huge learning curve! We are slowly learning her eating and sleeping habits and trying to not over analyze every one of her movements as we are worried about seizures starting again. All in all she’s been a real joy to have and it is so much better having her here with us and being able to hold her whenever we want and not having to drive to a hospital to see her.

Because of Julia’s diagnosis (which is officially called Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy) we have been proactive and gotten started with Home Health (visiting nurses) through Covenant Hospital in Waterloo and Early Access through AEA 267. We are also waiting to hear back from Early Development Intervention, also through Covenant. These are great resources but things are sort of difficult right now as we aren’t sure of what types of their services we will need. We won’t really know until Julia starts hitting or missing milestones which will probably start in a couple of months. Sometimes that makes being home with her hard. Just like the doctors said she’d be, she is just like any other normal baby….we won’t know anything neurologically for a few months. The waiting and anticipation is killing us, BUT, we are still incredibly happy with her and are excited to watch her learn and grow, come what may.

We really want to thank everyone for your prayers, love, and support. We have been bombarded with messages (in a good way!) the past few weeks and have felt extremely loved and blessed. We have not been able to respond to everyone but we have read every comment, every message, and every text and we are so grateful for all of you and your kind words and encouragement. We cannot thank you enough and there are no words to express our gratitude. We ask you to keep walking with us on this journey and keep praying for Julia’s health and development. We also want you to know that visitors are certainly welcome, we just ask that you call and arrange something first. Once again, thank you for everything and we can’t wait to keep updating everyone on our beautiful girl as she grows up!

Love,

Jesse & Teresa