Growing a Family: A more eventful than expected day...

Our day started out pretty well with only one hitch, a book left behind. The left behind book was our copy of "Are You My Mother" our traditional read for hospital stays. We read it everyday in the NICU and before any big procedure where mama is going to go away and the boys will be surrounded by strangers and machines. For those who are not familiar with the book, there is a little bird that hatches while mama is out getting the baby bird some food, the baby bird hops out of the nest in search of his mother and the "snort" is a big scary machine and he helps the baby bird back into his nest and then mama comes home. It makes me think of all the monitors and machines in the hospital, they are kind of scary and unfamiliar, but they will help my baby birds get back home with me. Our copy was given to us by one of my nearest and dearest friends Rachael and I don't even know if she knows the significance the book has come to have for us. It is our hospital book and goodness knows, we've had our share of hospital. Well this morning it was trapped in the dark room where I only wanted to rise ONE baby bird not THREE as Victor and I were leaving at 5:30 am and the boys usually sleep until at least 7. Well when we arrived at the hospital, what did we find sitting on the bench in the waiting room:

So that made mama happy and Victor loves to read with us so it was just fine with him. When we got back to the pre-op room we had a lovely nurse who brought toys in for Victor to play with and the toys she had picked couldn't have been more Victor. He loves things that spin and will spin and spin and spin them so he was very happy to hang out in the crib while I answered and asked all the necessary questions. Victor did a great job for the anesthetic as he listened intently to her story about a snoring bear as she helped him fall asleep. I've never been in the room for this procedure before, but was able to hold him while he went to sleep this time and it was very quiet and calm, but a little freaky seeing his little body start breathing really fast before it just went limp, but the anesthetists did warn me that this is exactly what would happen so I was prepared. After about an hour wait the surgeon was out to tell me that all went well. Both in-pulling eye muscles were moved about 6mm and it was completely as planned.

This is when the waiting got a little long, he said you can probably expect to see him in about an hour from recovery, but the hour past and knowing the eye doctor would give me a conservative estimate of time I was starting to get antsy. Just when I was about to start asking the nurses brought Victor in and he was groggy, and a little cranky, but snuggled right in and rested with me for a while.

When he fell into an actual sleep was when it got a little more interesting. He was alarming off with O2 sats in the mid-upper 80s. He looked great, pink and breathing comfortably, so for a while they tried other toes for the monitor and then they brought in a different monitor and nothing changed so he got to go back on oxygen for a bit and have an albuterol treatment. Once he did that he fared better for quite a while and we were just waiting on the anesthesiologist to stop in and give the official word on letting us go when he fell asleep again and started desating again. At that point she said we had to be monitored overnight which actually made me a little relieved. You never want any more time than necessary in the hospital, but you don't want to leave before you're ready and head right back either or worse, in the case of oxygen, have something serious go wrong in the night and not know because you are sleeping.

We got admitted and headed up to the 6th floor where we just so happened to have a former NICU nurse from our early days in our room and she was wonderful! Victor got to eat and play and relax and show mommy his new straighter eyes!

When it came time for bed Victor fell asleep really easily and fast and I was looking forward to an early night of rest after our 5 am start to the day.

After he was asleep for about 45 minutes he started desating again and not coming back up on his own so he had some blow by oxygen and got it going, but woke up from all the bustling in the room and that was the beginning of 4 or 5 hours of rocking and walking and rocking and walking. He didn't want to be laid down, didn't want me to sit down and didn't want me to be still. We tried music, white noise, me singing, bouncing, rocking, giving him an extra bottle and every other trick I can imagine, but he would fall only asleep if I was standing up and rocking or walking and the minute I tried to sit down or lay him down he was awake and mad! He finally fell asleep for good at 12:30 in the morning and this time he slept for 5 hours straight (not nearly the 10-12 hours we can expect at home) with NO ALARMS! That was our ticket out! Breakfast and a little more play time and a lot of getting bored later we finally had the rounding docs in the room saying get out of here!

Victor was happy as a clam to get to come home and it didn't take him long to head right for his favorite truck, after that we took a walk with our brothers and Victor's PT stopped by and was thoroughly impressed by how much better he is tracking already!