A Fostering Journey 62

We finally got the go ahead! We received a phone call from the hospital to say that the little lady had finally reached her target weight and that the Doctor had checked her over and that she was fit to be discharged. So we had a final checks that we had everything we needed and planned to go and collect her the following day, in the car of course. We both hardly slept that night and chatted about how things were going to change in the coming weeks and months. Once we got our boys off to school we got the one year old boy ready and prepared to set off to pick the little lady up. We had notified both our Supervising Social Worker and the Local Authority Social Worker. The Local Authority Social Worker was going to meet us at the hospital to ensure that everything was done correctly. We arrived, eventually found somewhere to park, unloaded the car and excitably made our way to the hospital.  We spoke to the Local Authority Social Worker and sat, with her, to go through the paperwork and sort out her red book and other paperwork. Eventually we were ready to leave. The Local Authority Social Worker made arrangements to visit us the following week for a catch up and for us to be able to settle the little girl at our home. We had a bit of a nightmare journey home as the traffic was really bad but we knew that it was the last time, hopefully, we would have to do that journey. We eventually got home and my wife took the babies inside while I unloaded everything else from the car. As soon as we got indoors both little ones needed feeding so I took the boy and my wife took that little girl and we fed them both and sat and chatted. Both fell asleep and we sat, with a coffee, and relaxed after a busy day and an early start. The weekend was spent with us receiving visitors from within our own families and everyone commented on how small she was. In fact it was only when she was being changed that you realised how tiny she really was. My two children were over 8lbs when they were born and my wife’s children were all a decent size too so, to see such a tiny little baby was strange for us both. We had previously agreed that my wife would feed, change and bathe her and I would focus on the boy. The reasoning behind this was that I was concerned about damaging her as she was so delicate. The little boy was a lot sturdier and a lot more robust so was less likely to be affected by a big ham fisted bloke. The plan worked to perfection and everyone was happy. Our sleep routine was totally destroyed but given that we had two young babies under the age of 13 months that was only to be expected. The 13 month was sleeping in a spare room, in a cot and watched with a monitor. His sleep routine was pretty good to be fair and he rarely woke up at night. We could put him down at 9 and we would go through, generally, at about 7am. We had the little girl in with us, of course, and she needed regular feeds so we agreed that my wife would feed her and I would get up in the morning, get our own boys off to school and look after the little boy. She could catch up on the sleep she lost during the night.