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CHAPTER 4: Homecoming - round 2
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"If there are no more complications the next few days, Aidan will most likely be ready to come home next week," the doctor said.
Aidan gave a tiny little smile from behind the bottle - almost as though he understood what the doctor had just said. I joined in. He was going home!
It had been nearly six painful months for all of us. Six months of walking around worrying about our little son - and brother - lying there alone in a hospital bed when we weren't around. Now the waiting had come to an end.
"Thanks doc," I said, and gave Aidan a careful hug. Only a few weeks ago we had finally been allowed to hold and touch him without wearing gloves and face masks due to a bad infection he'd struggled to get rid of. The doctors still insisted on giving Aidan some extra oxygen through tubes in his nose - but he was breathing on his own now. He was still a bit frail, and still had surgeries planned for the future, but for now he was in as good a shape as could be expected.
He was eating on his own, too, but tended to prefer a bottle over breastfeeding because it gave him a bit less resistance. He needed frequent breaks during meals, and quickly got tired. Only a few days earlier we'd carefully started to introduce Lily to foods like porridge and such, and while she spit out most of it, she was interested in trying. Aidan was still only getting milk with extra vitamins. He was also a bit smaller than his sister - and while Lily had started sitting up with support and roll around, Aidan was far behind her there too, but he had partly rolled over once or twice the past couple weeks, getting tangled in the monitor wires, so we hoped he wasn't too far behind. Both of them were supposed to be roughly on the level of 4 month old babies, so we didn't have too high expectations. Now he only had wires monitoring his vitals, and oxygen tubes to help with his breathing. He'd been moved to the step-down unit about three weeks prior, and had gotten a regular baby bed to sleep in.
A few days before, we'd taken Aidan to one of the family rooms so his older siblings could properly meet their brother, and Tony had been allowed to hold him for the very first time.
He had been over himself with joy, and if I was not mistaken, he was still smiling right now. He had even begged to change Aidan's diaper!
Already from the first second, there had been a strong bond between them, and I saw what I had always seen in Tony - that he was without doubt one of the best big brothers in the world. And from the ear-to-ear smile Aidan gave Tony, I could see the baby agreed with me.
Erica had also been allowed to meet her little brother. She had smiled, pointed at him and happily exclaimed "Aidan baby bother", before staring at him through the entire bottle of milk Tony fed him.
Lily had met her brother for the first time in weeks, too - and I had the feeling she had been really happy to see him again. The two of them had stared at each other with wide open eyes, before Lily had started smiling. He'd smiled back, and grabbed her hand. When we got home, she'd even allowed me to put her down for a while so I could do a bit of cleaning. At times I wondered if she had an invisible connection to Aidan, because she acted as an antenna to his health. If she cried the entire night, suddenly started bawling out of the blue, or refused to be put down, you could bet something had happened to Aidan. She'd been a nightmare during the recent infection, barely sleeping at all.
And now Aidan was going home. Finally we could start being a real family. Not having to visit the hospital all the time would be the best part - and of course the almost six hospital-free months for me before I started working again after the maternity leave.
Life couldn't be better.
When we came home that day, we went straight upstairs to the room we had readied for the twins, to put the final touch on the decorations (Erica's help was mostly limited to testing the toys). The old baby bed we'd used for Tony and Erica had broken a while back, when Tony decided to play pirates with a few of his friends and needed a pirate ship, so we'd invested in a couple sturdier cribs in white.
We'd wanted to give the room to the twins together, and now we finally could. Lily had slept with Peter and me up until now, because it was the only way we could get her to sleep. I hoped this would change once Aidan came home.
A week later, I could finally dress up little Aidan in his own new clothes instead of the hospital wear. In spite of being clothes supposed to fit three month old babies, the clothes were still quite loose-fitting on him.
As we were leaving, I held up Aidan and said "good-bye" with a baby voice while waving his hand toward the doctor and nurses who were waving their good-byes to him. It felt wonderful.
At home, we were met with half our family plus a lot of friends, smiling and waving, and a banner saying "Welcome home, Aidan!"
Everyone wanted to hold him, and since most of them were meeting him for the first time, I could understand it. Tony was overly enthusiastic about it all, and kept the twins very busy doing peek-a-boo games as long no one were holding them. It was wonderful hearing Aidan giggle together with his sister.
That night, the twins slept happily in their beds, which we'd for the occasion put together so they could see each other. The next morning I found them smiling and holding hands through the railings.
Everything felt perfect.
About a week later we spent their first Christmas at my parents' house, my mom insisting we had more than enough on our hands already. The kids loved all the extra attention and presents, and I was happy to leave all the responsibility in mom's capable hands.
Finally I had all my four children around me - and even though all the diaper changing, crying, feeding and cleaning (Erica and Tony 'helped' a lot by throwing things around and making a mess every so often) took a lot of my energy, I didn't care. I felt so free all of a sudden. We could go for outings in the park, and just be a family again. When Tony and Erica had their tenth and fourth birthday, we went for a big family picnic in the snow. I baked cakes and other goodies, we made cocoa and grilled marshmallows, and everyone had a wonderful time.
Then one night as I was checking on the twins because I heard Lily cry, I found Aidan lifeless in his bed, his skin almost purple.
Happiness just doesn't last forever.
