SURGERY DAY!!!

I got up whenever it was Tate got up that morning.... its all a little blurry to me, seeing as I didn't sleep the night before. Since his surgery wasn't until the afternoon we didn't have to be to Primary's until noon, so we were able to take our time in the morning... eating breakfast, chatting, getting ready, etc. Tate wasn't allowed to eat anything after midnight.... I think he could breastfeed until 8:30am... then only clear liquids until 10am.... after that he was allowed nothing. This made him slightly cranky. We gave him a freeze pop right before his 10am cut off and then he finally gave up on being cranky and fell asleep in my arms. Which if you know him, know its very very rare, if not impossible for him to fall asleep anywhere but his bed!

My sweet baby boy!
When we got to the hospital we went straight to same day surgery, where we went the day before. This time we were given a little light up device, just like the kind you get when you go to olive garden and there is a wait. I had to register his waiting device in the computer and then we waited for a little bit. I'm sure we didn't wait very long but when you're already anxious as it is it seems a bit long.

While we waited we all took turns loving on Tate and getting our pictures taken w/ him.

I love this one of Ryan and Tate.

Grammy!

Then our little device lit up and I went over to fill out registration paper work. The next step was for it to make noise, so we waited again while it was blinking (and confusing us no less...) and when it beeped we were sent back into the examine room.

We had a very none helpful, and confusing nurse taking care of us. She had an accent so it was hard to understand her a lot of the time. And then there was one point where she asked us what pain level we wanted for our baby.... "on a scale of 1 to 10 what pain level do you want for him?"

WHAT?!?!?! You're kidding me.... right?

Nope, she wasn't kidding... we had to "pick a number". She showed us a chart where 0 was a smiling babies face and 10 was a screaming baby w/ tears on its face. No freakin' way!?!?!

Can you guess what number I picked???

The nurse brought in socks and a gown for Tate to wear. I thought there was NO way those tiny socks would fit on his feet... so we took a picture.... but lo and behold they did fit.

He was so cute in his hospital gown... though we all agree we wish they'd had a cuter one... maybe a plain colored one... with no pink on it.

Here's Tate's tag he had to wear. It was so comforting to me to have this tag on and to see the nurses and doctors check it everytime they gave him anything or did anything to him. They scanned it and got the approval from the computer before anything. Loved it.

No 10,000 times the dosage of heparin for my little man!

Tate was still super hungry... getting hungrier by the second.... so we had to distract him with little things, like the plastic bag that his socks came in. He was actually pretty good for not being allowed to eat anything for so long.

Then they took us to the pre-op waiting room, where all the surgery patients waited for their surgeries. I think we waited here the longest. We were given a nice little waiting area w/ four gliding rocking chairs. All the other kids going into surgery were older and so they were having nurses come w/ pictures and tell them what to expect for their surgeries.

I was so grateful Tate was so young and got to remain blissfully unaware of what was about to happen to him.

After waiting a long time and fussing over his hunger (I can only guess... especially since he kept pulling at my shirt and head butting me in the chest), he eventually fell asleep and remained asleep we had followed the anesthesiologist down the hallway to the operating room doors and handed him off. The anesthesiologist said we should all give him our last little hugs and kisses and then that was it. I put him in the anesthesiologist's arms and watch him take him past the red line on the ground and through the OR doors. That was it.

I had imagined there would be tears. I had imagined there would be uncontrollable shaking. I had imagined it would be so much harder than it actually was. I felt totally comfortable handing him to the anesthesiologist. I felt totally comforted that everything would be alright. I mean, those "what ifs" that I'd been obessing over for the last two months (actually the last 10 months if we want to be realllllll honest about it), had all but disappeared. The three of us walked down the hallway (following the umbrellas on the floor) to the same day surgery waiting room. We had DREADED this waiting room after getting the tour the day before because it looked totally tiny and cramped. Silly us for thinking it was only that one side, when we got to the door we saw that the waiting room was actually 4 times the size we had thought it was and much more cheery and welcoming than it looked the day before. Ryan and I checked in at the desk, and mom scored us some sweet seats in the corner of the room, away from everyone else and on the GREEN chairs! Which I had wanted, because of course Tate's color is green... gotta represent!

The time waiting for the surgery to be over is kind of a blur. We never really got to a point where we were watching the clock and wondering where on earth our updates were. It was 2pm when we handed Tate off to the anesthesiologist. It was 3:30 when we got our first update from the desk nurse saying they had finished getting all the tubes and things hooked up to him, and had finished the echo (through his esphogus... i think....) and were just beginning the surgery. She told us the next update would be at 4:30pm. I was the one who got the first update at the desk because Ryan was out searching for food for us (Panda Express).... He got back and I'm not sure but I don't think we were done w/ our food yet when they called us to the desk again at "4:28pm" (two mins. early!! sweet), saying they had finished the surgery, everything went well, they were closing him up. What?!!?!?! Seriously??? We were told to expect the actual "surgery" part to take 3 to 4 hours... not ONE!!!! It just blew our minds. The nurse on the phone told us that the dr. would be down to speak w/ us soon. At 5:45 Dr. Kouretas met us in the waiting room. He said everything well "fine", man I hate that word and then asked us to follow him to a room to speak further. I wasn't freaked out by this, I had seen lots of other parents get called into that room to speak, but mom hadn't. Mom freaked out in her mind a little bit.... was thinking "pace maker" i think, since Dr. Kouretas had warned us the day before that it was a very small possibility. Turned out (as you know) that everything went FABULOUS. Of course Dr. Kouretas didn't use the word fabulous, but rather "fine"... did I mention I hate that word? Anyway, he said we could go meet Tate in the PICU in about 45 minutes.

Here we are reading the hearts everyone wrote for Tate (and us). We read this from the time the nurse said they were finishing up until the dr. came to speak with us.

Since we had 45 minutes to kill, Ryan hung out in the surgery waiting room and mom and I ventured to the 4th floor NICU nursing room so I could pump for little man. Here I am in the elevator going up..... mom liked to take pictures of all the cool art work they had throughout the children's hospital. She knew G.G. would want to see.

Walking down the hall as fast as we could to go see our baby!

And then there he was. In bed 7 (I think). It was all the way on the left side, in a little secluded corner. Which was nice.

I can't really put into words what it was like to see him for the first time. I know for Ryan it was a bit more of a shock to him. For me, I wasn't shocked. I had researched and seen picturse online (call me crazy)... I knew what to expect and I had been picturing my baby like that for months (not on purpose). For me it was a relief to see him again. It wasn't at all what I would prefer to see him like.... all out of it and breathing really wierd and irradically.... but it was a relief to just see him. To see him breathing... irradic yes, but breathing! And no breathing tube nonetheless (we were told to expect a breathing tube for the first day or two....).

My relief came in the form of sheer, and sudden exhaustion. I didn't cry at all, like I would have expected. I just got super tired all of the sudden. I could hardly keep my eyes open.

Ryan on the other hand felt really sad for his baby having to hooked up to so many machines and breathing like that. I think the breathing part bothered him the most. For the half an hour we were allowed to stay in there before the nurses shift change hour @ 7-8pm, Ryan never left Tate's side and rarely let go of his hand. It was really sweet to watch.

Here are Tate's nurses when we got in there. I wish I had thought to get pictures of Tate w/ all his nurses, especially my favorite (Shelley).... these ladies were really only his nurses for like an hour. They said no facebooking them... but this isn't facebook! lol.

When we had to leave for shift change we walked down to the PICU waiting room and sleeping rooms. Ryan was given a room like we had asked for to spend the night in (it was just a room the size of a closet w/ a twin bed in it). And mom and I headed back to the Avery's house so that I could get a good nights sleep.

Ryan went back to see Tate at 8pm and stayed with him and his male nurse "Skyler" until about midnight when he went to the sleeper room to catch some sleep. We were both so blessed to feel calm and confident in the care Tate was receiving to both feel okay to leave him in the PICU alone. I had planned all along to never leave his side. I'm so glad that we did though and were able to get the much needed sleep.

(Stay tuned for the next post.... Post Op: Day 1)