Surgery Day

Day 19

Thurs. Aug. 5th, 2010
(no recorded weight today)
Dr. Smith (Pediatric Surgeon)
Dr. O
Nurse: AM-Katrina

Started off the morning keeping Maylin comforted, as she was held off her feedings since 3 am this morning to go into surgery. Poor thing was hungry=(

Brock, Mom and Pastor Jon came around 9:30. At that point the nurses were working on finding another strong IV site on Maylin, since her previous one, just from 6 am wasn't staying it. It was awful to watch and hear her keep getting messed with, but that had to get a good stick=/ Kind of a stressful point of the morning. Finally at 10 am they got it in, so we then waited on the anesthesiologist to come up and get things rolling.

In the meantime, I held her as long as possible and she finally got to a peaceful point and took a nap in my arms while Pastor Jon read scripture and we prayed over Maylin. Talk about an emotional time for all of us!

The surgery time got delayed so we waited a long time...2 more hours actually.

Love her little pose here....she was so peaceful napping in my arms=)

Brock also held her for a while, then finally at noon, the surgeon, Dr. Smith came and talked us through the surgery. A few minutes later they got her all set to go, and took her downstairs to get started.

The procedure was estimated to be about an hour long, assuming it would be just removing the cord, and tying off whatever was "feeding" the cord.

While we waited we grabbed lunch to-go at Mancino's and came back to wait in the lounge until she was done.

At about 1:30 Dr. Smith met us in the lounge and said it went perfect! Praise God!
He explained to us that he did a "u-shaped" incision under the belly button, went to the abdominal wall, cut and tied off the bladder, then he pulled back the belly button tissue and attached it, creating the "innie", while the cut-off excess umbilical cord was sent off for testing.

Here she is! Back and waking up already. She wasn't really thrilled at this point:(

Had some oxegon, the switched to a cannula into the afternoon, then had that removed by evening. She is a strong little squirt and didn't have to have many meds in her system for the pain. They kept it under control for her though so that was good.

At this point, the Dr.'s and nurses emphasized how important it was for her to thoroughly rest and stay quiet, no holding or feedings til late Friday or early Saturday morning. They informed me that this was a window of opportunity to go home if I felt I could. That was definitely a feeling of relief because I felt like there was nothing I could do for her at that point, and had been waiting to go home again. So this evening I'm sitting in the comfort of my home with my family, missing my baby girl of course, but I know she is in the best care possible! It feels good to trust them to have her in their hands.

*On a funny note: Dr. Smith is quite the character when it comes to his music selections...so we asked him what he listened to when he performed our baby's surgery=)...quite the variety I might add!!

Here was his play list:

"California Girls"-Beach Boys
"Cashmere"-Led Zeppelin
"Give Me Your Eyes"-Brandon Heith (also my ringtone! so cool!)
"Kiss Me"-Six Pence None the Richer
"Walking on Sunshine"
"Apologize"-One Republic

Thanks for all the prayers....most definitely answered! God was holding Maylin in his hands today, and will continue to as her little body heals!