Actually And Completely Happy

This is the face of True Happiness

Elijah was scheduled to come home on Tuesday. We thought the nurses were going to call us around noon and we would come get him at 2 pm. We didn't know for certain, yet, if he was going to be actually coming home. I didn't want to get my hopes up and for them to say, "No, he didn't do well last night, so we need him to stay another day" (which happens all the time. I overheard people in the waiting room talking about how their homecoming had been pushed back over and over for the last two weeks.). Trying to keep my mind off of it until we knew for sure, I went to the store and ran a few errands on Tuesday morning, just so the day wasn't a waste in case it got cancelled.

At 12:30, I was worried because I hadn't heard anything yet. I called the nurse on my way home to see if we had the green light.

Nurse: "Oh, yeah, he's supposed to go home, where are you?"
Me: "Oh, I thought you were going to call us at noon."
Nurse: "Oh, I thought you were COMING at noon. Come get your baby!"

So, I rushed into the house with bags of groceries and yelled for Adam to come help me. It was almost a magical moment. When I was pregnant, I had envisioned us rushing out the door when I would have gone into labor, giddy with excitement and nervousness. We were robbed of that moment when I was induced, so it was almost like we were getting to experience it after all. We hurried to put away the groceries, sticking them in almost any empty space (over the next couple of days I had to recover some things that were thrown in odd places.). We rushed out the door... and had to gas up, which took an excruciatingly long time.

At last, we arrived at the hospital and rushed to his room for the very last time. We filled out the paper work, signed the document that said we were receiving the right baby, and packed up all of our things that we had left in that room over the last 3 1/2 months. Adam went downstairs with arms full of bags to bring the car around, and I went down with the nurse and Elijah.

He was the man of the hour. A bunch of the nurses came around to say good-bye, and the security guard, people on the elevator, and people in front of the hospital kept coming up and looking at him. We got him into his little car seat and drove him home.

I had expected my emotions to run out of me like a waterfall. I thought that it would be too much happiness, that I wouldn't be able to bear it. I didn't feel that way at all, though. I felt only a wonderful sensation of being complete. As Adam drove us home and I sat next to Elijah's car seat, watching him fall asleep, I felt a warm satisfaction that all was finally right with the world, because, for the first time in almost 4 months, it finally is.