Joli’s mom, Cath Howard, flew into town for a 5 day visit today. When I got off of work, I drove straight to the hospital so Joli could get away with Mom for a few hours. The hospital policy is that one of the parents has to be with the baby at all times. I did not mind one bit as I had a special time cuddling my new little daughter. My dad also came in for about an hour to get some grand-daddy time!

Aria had one of her final antibiotic treatments on my watch. It is over an hour long process! At the end of the first dose, the nurse came in to flush out the IV in her little hand. I think her hand the IV had quite enough medicine. The moment the nurse began to flush the IV, Aria began to cry! So she stopped and had another nurse come in and check the IV. Both agreed to stop and check with the supervising doctor. The doctor quickly ordered the removal of the IV, and I knew at that moment that things were looking good. Besides, she had already had about 6 days of treatment!

When Joli returned, the nurse came in to give her the good news that the IV was off and that treatments had ended. She also informed us that the doctors wanted to keep her there over night just to keep an eye on her. At this point, we were both exhausted and just wanted to be home. Before the nurse had entered the room we had a brief family prayer and asked God to bless us with favor in the eyes of the doctors to go home tonight! The nurse told us about three times that the morning is what the doctors had ordered. So Joli and I both put on our puppy dog faces and asked if we could appeal. The nurse graciously said she would call them up and see what they would say. We continued to pray and sent a text message over to Eden and Mom Howard to begin praying. About 5 minutes later, one of the doctors came in with a big smile on her face and said, “Aria can go home tonight!”

We just cannot believe how awesome those words were to us tonight, as we were SO anxious to get home and be with Joel and Chalice too, who were being perfect little angels! We praise God for the care of professionalism of the UCSD staff. The nurses and midwives were just amazing. We made some new friends and were able to give God the glory during our 5 day stay too! I was so excited when we all drove home that I had to wake up at least one of the kids. Joel is the only one who does not mind being woken up…so he has been running around the home with the biggest smile on his face that Dad woke him up to fellowship and eat ice cream!

We’ve posted more photos on our website, and I hope you’ll take a moment to view them and post your comments as well!