Surgery Time

Mom and I got up bright and early the next morning to get to the hospital at 8:30am. I went right into the NICU (after scrubbing…) and was actually able to hold him before he went to surgery. When it was time to take him down, mom and I went into the conference room so the surgeon could go over what the plan was. Dr. Christopher Newton sat down and roughly explained what he was going to do and told us it would take about 2 hours. I didn’t really have any questions, so they gave us our pager and told us it would buzz when he was out.

Needless to say it was a LLLLOOOONNNGGG morning. Mom and I got breakfast, pumped, Aaron had left his wallet in the Malibu so we had to arrange to get him that, I pumped, I talked to Dawn Urness, I pumped…it was basically torture. Torture. And let’s not discuss the waiting room. Please keep in mind I am less than 36 hours post-partum and there is not a free seat to be had in the waiting room because it is full…and there are plenty of men enjoying a comfy seat. Needless to say, the “momma bear” comes out even when your baby is almost 30.

We see two hours come and go and go and go and go, and you try really hard to not worry but somewhere around the 4 hour mark, I start to get nervous. So I figure, I’ll go pump and as soon as I get all set up, the pager will buzz. Sure enough!

We head back to the conference room and Dr. Newman comes out and proceeds to tell us he has “never seen or read any cases of the way Matthew’s intestines were blocked.” Great. Way to be an over achiever! It’s basically a miracle Matthew wasn’t in liver fail because his biliary duct went through the blockage. The reason the surgery took so long is because the Doctor had to improvise on how to make the correction, he even drew me a picture.  All I basically cared about was 1. What were the chances scar tissue could create another blockage and 2. When could I see my baby?  As we left the surgery waiting room, they were just wheeling him back to the nursery, so the anesthesiologist (who still thought I looked fantastic- he’s my favorite!), stopped so I could see him. It’s pretty crazy seeing someone pump oxygen into your baby. 

After hanging around with Matthew for a little while longer, they told me they would not be extubating him till the next day, so it would be good if I went home and got some rest. I was happy to oblige.