Baby Kaylee, the infant girl thrust into controversy, left a Toronto hospital in a limousine and was spirited away to her grandparent's Bradford, Ont., home in a helicopter.

Doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children discharged Kaylee on Thursday, allowing her parents to take her home to a life of constant medical monitoring.

The infant girl had been taken off life support so she could die, which would have allowed her heart to be donated to another infant. But Kaylee beat the odds and lived, although her parents created controversy by publicly stating their donation wishes.

They have also had their battles with Sick Kids, complaining about her care and asking for her to be transferred to another hospital. That's all water under the bridge now.

"She's home. That's what it's about," said her dad Jason Wallace outside the family home. That road home was "one heck of a roller-coaster," he said.

Kaylee and her parents took a limousine from Toronto's Sick Kids Hospital to a ferry that brought the family to Toronto Island Airport.

From there, a helicopter took the family to Bradford, which is located about 70 kilometres north of Toronto, with a police escort to their Bradford house. A man who had heard Kaylee's story paid for the flight, but the couple's publicist had previously offered the media an exclusive story in exchange for providing a helicopter ride.

The publicist had been working pro bono for the family for several weeks.

The family arrived in Bradford shortly before 2 p.m. on Thursday.

Kaylee's room looks more like a room in an intensive care ward. Her parents have been trained to keep an eye on her. They have also been trained to perform CPR on Kaylee.

The young girl now needs years of careful watching after surviving this period of critical illness, says the head of pediatrics at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

"They usually do fairly well, but the issues are developmental delays ... there can be visual problems and there can be seizures," Dr. Dennis Daneman told reporters on Thursday.

"There are other problems that can arise that need to be monitored, and these will be very carefully monitored in the months and years ahead."

Kaylee suffers from a rare brain disorder called Joubert syndrome, which affects about one child in 160,000, according to Daneman. Doctors did not expect she would live very long. Kaylee developed sleep apnea, which means she stops breathing when she sleeps.

In April, Kaylee was taken off a life-supporting respirator while she slept, so that her tiny heart could be donated.

But she rallied. Doctors no longer considered her a donation candidate. Baby Lilliane, the other infant in the case, is still waiting for a donor heart.

Daneman said once Kaylee is home, a local pediatrician will be primarily responsible for looking after the child's medical needs, although he and the parents can consult with the hospital if they wish.

"There's a large group of people here who are very much aware of what's going with her and are able to help them," he said.

Reporters asked whether the controversies that have sometimes flared around the case have hurt the hospital's reputation.

"I think the reputation of Sick Kids has always been superb and will continue to be superb," Daneman said. "The care has been outstanding. I think the health professionals have handled themselves in the most exemplary way possible. I don't see any way the reputation of our institution has been sullied in any way at all."

With a report from CTV's Michelle Dube and files from The Canadian Press