Today…three months and ten days after their early and rather harsh separation…Tess and Titus were finally reunited.  Now they are together again with their forever family where they belong.  Sleepless nights, mountains of laundry, endless bottles, and crying in unison will all be worth it to see these sweet babies grow up together.  Why our family received this incredible blessing, I will never know, but I thank God for His goodness in bringing them to us.  Let the adventure begin!

HOME!!! 

A repeat sector scan this morning showed no change since Monday, so the neurosurgeon FINALLY agreed to discharge Titus (we love this neurosurgeon by the way, but he was hoping to keep Titus for several more weeks just to be safe).  So, Titus left CHKD around 2:30 pm, and the first thing he did when he got home was what any true Barnes baby would do…he took Jonah to swim practice!

And once she got the word that Titus had beat her home, Tess took three bottles in a row, so hopefully Part 2 of “There’s No Place Like…HOME!!!!” will air soon.

And now, without further delay…the first day of the rest of his life…in pictures…because they are far better than words sometimes…

I think a key to a successful blog is actually posting on it, but the past two weeks have been so busy that I haven’t had time to do that.  The problem is that the longer I go without updating, the more there is to tell and the harder it is to find time to write it all.  So, I decided to resort to a not-so-well written but hopefully informative update.

In the past two weeks, we have had three different kids have three different surgeries; had one start college classes, four start homeschool, and three start co-op; and have reunited with lots of CHKD friends while spending as much time as possible visiting Tess and Titus.  Here is all the news in short form…

Lydia successfully got her third set of tubes on Monday, August 26, which now seems like eons ago and was blissfully uneventful.  Our homeschool year started the same day because if we postponed it for something like this, it would have never started.

Maya started classes at W&M on Wednesday, August 28 and is happily immersed in college life.  We remind her now and then that she has a family back home that misses her greatly, but mostly we are excited that she is loving college life so much.  We have noticed that the house is quieter and seems to be easier to keep clean.  Not sure what that is all about!?

We have enjoyed countless hours of visiting and holding Tess and Titus and getting to know them.  Titus is very laid back most of the time and makes the most amazing faces, especially for the camera.  Tess has a lot more to say about how she feels about things and does not hesitate to express her dissatisfaction when something is not to her liking.  Both are total cuddle bugs!  We have enjoyed introducing them to every friend willing to give an hour or two to hold a baby.

We thought Titus would come home this week because he has not needed tapping (removal of cranial fluid through his reservoir) since arriving at KD and since he has taken all feeds by bottle since removing his own feeding tube a little over a week ago (great idea!), but unfortunately, his head circumference started going up this week, so the neurosurgeon wants to keep him another week or so for observation.

Always the competitive one, Tess seized the opportunity to position herself to come home first by having her shunt placed on Tuesday morning of this week.  The neurosurgeon said the surgery went “incredibly well,” and as direct as he is, I take that to be a strong statement of fact!  Her recovery has gone well, too.  She is back to taking two bottles a day, and the only thing keeping her in the hospital now is feeding.

 Marina got a second try at her oral surgery today, this time under general anesthesia, so she would continue to breathe (or at least have the vent breathe for her!).  Her four wisdom teeth and two pre-molars were successfully extracted, and metal hooks were attached to her upper jaw in preparation for the orthodontic work needed to prepare her for double jaw surgery next summer.  The surgery went well, but she had a rough time shaking the anesthesia and some post-op nausea.  We are hoping for a smooth, infection-free recovery with minimal pain and NO dry sockets!  (No picture here…she would NEVER forgive me!)

Those are the highlights.  Sorry for the lack of details or even interesting narration, but I am thinking that at this point, information is what people want most.  I will try to do a better job updating regularly now that this string of surgeries and the start of school are behind us.