Nobody Said This Was Easy: Post-Op Day 1: We're on the Other Side!

On the road at 5 am!

Ryan had his surgery this morning at 7:30. I woke him up to nurse around 2:30 and we left the house at 5, arriving here at 5:45. Side note, I always complain about the traffic living in the DC area, but having such an amazing doctor and facility so close to our house has been a true blessing.

They took him back around 6:45 to ask a million of the same questions over and over again. We met his medical team 5-7 doctors would be there during his surgery and then had to hand him over. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be able to be with him while he was sedated. They said that policy is that if the babies are under a year old, they don't really need their parents because stranger anxiety hasn't really set in yet. I was a little surprised because stranger anxiety kicks in like crazy around six months.

Before they took him back. Poor little guy didn't even know what was happening :( This was also before all of the doctors starting coming in wearing their caps (Ryan is terrified of people in hats right now).

I'm not going to lie (I really don't lie so I don't know why I always preface comments with this) ... that was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. I had decided beforehand that I wouldn't be too upset in front of Ryan because I didn't want him to sense it. The few times that I've cried in front of him he's definitely looked confused. I couldn't find a "good-bye" to suffice ... a kiss didn't seem like enough. Five kisses didn't seem like it'd be enough. We handed him over and the doctor could tell it was difficult for us. "One more kiss" she said :( We moped back to the waiting room and I bawled in my mom's arms.

Dr. Keating said that it would take about an hour to get him in and then his work would take about an hour. He warned us first though that things happen and not to freak out if the time went longer. The cool thing about Children's is that they have a huge screen up where they show the progress of each case. That way we weren't completely clueless to what was happening.

After ~~15 days~~ 2.5 hours Dr. Keating came out and said that everything went really well. Ryan didn't need a blood transfusion (woohoo). He said that there's a 50/50 chance that he'll need one tonight because he lost about "a quarter tank" (surprisingly, his medical lingo not mine). He also didn't see any of Ryan's brain or a loss of any spinal fluids. After today he will hopefully be moved into his own room. He took us to the PICU to wait to see our baby boy and after about a half hour we got to see him.

When we walked into the room we both just broke down. He didn't look too different, only slightly puffy. Dr. Keating said that because of the position that he was in during surgery (face down with a lot of fluids pressing down), it would be like one of us drinking a ton of beer and eating pizza and then sleeping face down (again, his words). But other than that he looked so peaceful. Since then he's been touch and go. He wakes up and fusses and whines and after about 5 minutes goes back to sleep. He's on morphine to help but they said that the pain medicine isn't necessarily because they know he's in pain ... his nurse said that he has about 100 reasons to be upset but they want to address the one (pain) that they can. He has quite a few lines running out of him right now: oxygen out of his nose, a drain coming from his head filled with a pinkish/reddish fluid, two IVs out of his feet, a catheter, and an arterial line (to take his blood pressure, take blood, etc.). The oxygen tubes will hopefully be out in a little once he's more awake and the other lines will ideally be out tomorrow morning. Ideally he'll be able to drink some breast milk in a little. We are waiting to see if we can get into a private PICU room. His nurse said it likely won't happen because they are completely full, but we'll see! And let's hope because there is a baby in here with us who is NOT happy. And has not been happy for like two hours.