Parker- Week 1

Yesterday Parker turned a week old!

He also had his surgery and before I go on, I just want to let you know it was a huge success and he is beginning the recovery process.

The surgery took about an hour an a half, which is less time than they originally told us. (This is good.) He did have a hernia in his diaphragm, but it was not a complete hernia (or hole). There was still a membrane holding his organs together, which made it much easier to repair. They said as soon as they pulled the other organs in place his left lung fell into place and looked like it was fairly developed, which is good. We kind of expected that his left lung would not be in terribly bad shape because the hernia did not show up on my 34 week sonogram and this is usually a problem they catch on a sonogram. My doctor even went back to look at the 34 week sonogram to double check and this problem is not visible. This means it likely occurred in the final weeks he was cooking in my tummy.

He is still on a ventilator, has a chest tube (although it is really coming out of his left side where the very small incision is) and he has a tube going in his mouth that goes to his stomach to help release gases and other things, it is not a feeding tube-yet.

He also has various other tiny tubes coming and going, but the above mentioned items are the biggies.
Parker is actually doing a great job breathing and from the beginning was on one of the lowest settings on the ventilator. They had to bump it up a bit after surgery, but I called in the middle of the night (while pumping) last night and they have been bringing it down little by little.

The miletones we are looking for are:
-Remove the chest tube which is in purely to drain fluid from the wound, once there is no fluid, there is no need for the tube. It is usually in for at least 2 days.
-Remove the ventilator. He is doing a great job with breathing and hopefully will be off this soon. This tube seems to piss him off the most and looks the scariest because it is big and taped to his face.
-Attempt to feed him my milk through the other tube in his mouth that leads to his stomach. Of these three things, this will happen last. They will give him a tiny amount of my milk to "prime" his system and slowly introduce more and more and eventually take the tube out so they (I) can actually feed him.

Next is the age old question of "When can he come home?"
I have not been brave enough to actually ask this question. My birthday is July 16 and I hope he is home by then. I have no idea if that is a long shot, reasonable request or way over shooting it.

Yesterday I was talking to him after the surgery and he was trying to hard to arch those eyebrows (which are barely there) to try to get his little eyes open and it sort of worked, but he was so drugged he ended up just going back to sleep.

He has some amazing nurses and that helps me sleep at night...literally. I can call at any time and they never seem annoyed or put out. They are truly among the most special people on earth.

Everyone keeps asking me how I am doing and I can't really answer that, mainly because I have no idea. I'm in a state of shock with periodic bouts of sanity. I'm not crazy crying all the time, but I cry everyday. I still see the humor in some things that have happened, but I don't laugh as hard as I normally would. I will be a full fledged Nikki again, when my Parker is home.

Josh is amazing. He does not handle seeing Parker very well, but he will do anything to make sure I have what I need. He seems to be upset, but optimistic.

We know that we are (hopefully) on the upswing here and that Parker is as healthy as he can be at the moment and he will continue to get healthier each day.

Two pieces of humor to let you know that I am still Nikki and I will be ok...eventually
When I was in labor and the contractions were terrible, I heard my doctor talking to someone in my room, a nurse I think. I am not sure what the nurse said to prompt this comment, but I heard my doctor say, "No, the contractions are not close enough together." Some how in between these wretching contractions I managed to squeak out, "They are to me!" I am not sure what her response was...

Moments later I lay there on the operating table as they were prepping me for the c-section. Again a nurse asked my doctor if she should shave me. I was under some heavy numbing medicine at this point, but I did manage to defend myself a bit by saying, "I would have taken care of that, but this is all happening a week early!" p.s. My doctor said there was not time to shave and I'm assuming began cutting...I was way numb!

Small milestones to some

I want to thank everyone who responded to the email and is reading this blog.
Parker has been put on a lot of prayer lists and we really appreciate that.

I continue to visit him everyday. I am not allowed to drive because of the c-section, but my my mom has stayed in Calvert County and takes me up and back every day. She is amazing. Being a mom myself, now I completely understand how someone can be so selfless especially when their baby is hurting. I need to sit by Parker side for about 4 to 5 hours everyday and just hold his hand. I would love to do it more, but after 4 to 5 hours I am drained and end up spending the rest of my night crying off and on.

Since the last post we have had some milestones which may seem small to most, but are the world to us.

We have a surgery date of July 1 pretty much nailed down, but we do not have the time yet. They keep reminding us that Hopkins is a trauma center and if a "more serious" case comes up, Parker will get bumped. They also tell us this is good news because if he is bumpable then he is stable. I know what they are saying, but somehow, I fail to see that as ok.

Parker was Baptised today. We only did this because it is something we wanted to do anyway and after all we have been through up to this point, we took advantage of a service the hospital provided. We did not do this because of some dark reason related to him having surgery. They do tell us that he is strong and should pull through surgery just fine.

For the first time today my son opened his eyes.
He has been trying like hell to do this for two days and today it finally happened. It was only in little spurts and his eyes were not all the way open, but for a few seconds we could look at each other. It was almost heaven. I say almost, because there is only one thing that could top that and that one thing also occured today.

I got to hold my son for the first time today.
It was amazing.
We sat there for...forever and he just fell esleep in my arms. I wished so bad that we were home so that I could sleep with him.

We have no idea how long after surgery he will have to wait before he comes home. I do know that they want to start giving him the milk I leave there for him asap via the tube that us in his stomach. Once they see he can process it ok, they will remove that tube and start feeding him normally. He has a ventalator in as well so before he can eat for real, that needs to be removed, but he is on the lowest setting right now and we are hoping the levels do not change post surgery.

There are a few more very sad things that I do not want to write about because I do not want to document them.

I saw my baby's eyes and held him today, that is what I want to remember.