One Thing Down

Well, we got Caetlin's surgery behind us today. It was a very quick procedure, as promised, and the surgery center was actually running ahead of schedule, so we went home at 1:30 this afternoon, after having arrived at 10:30 that morning.

She woke up early purely by chance this morning, though we needed to get her up early anyway so she could have some Jello and juice for breakfast (no solids allowed), which she had to finish by 8:30. We had talked about going to the doctor, and how they would help her have a nap and when she woke up Mommy and Daddy would be there, and maybe her girl parts might be a little sore, but I'm not sure how much of it sunk in. She was super cooperative at the surgery center, though, especially in taking the vitals. When the nurse pulled out the blood pressure cuff, she stuck out her ankle and pulled up her pants leg (they mostly took her blood pressure in her leg when she was in the hospital, as that was usually more accessible). The nurse was amazed at how good she was, and we had to admit that it was because of her recent hospital stay.

They only let one person back with her when they put her under the anesthesia, which by default was Bruce. They said there may be gases in the room that would be problematic for the baby, so I was not allowed back. He described it as a typical operating room, brightly lit and with four or five people in there. He laid her down on the bed and she started getting really scared, and crying a little, especially when they put the mask on, of which I guess she had little warning. Then to watch her go under was kind of freaky, as her eyes rolled back in her head and she was gone.

We were led to a small post-op room to wait. The procedure itself only took 10-15 minutes, and when the urologist came to see us after, he told us that her right ureter was pretty badly misplaced, possibly worse than the tests have so far indicated. They corrected it with the injection of the Deflux material, and now it is a waiting game to see if the material stays put and holds fast over time.

After another 15 or 20 minutes, they brought her in on a bed. She was crying, clearly scared and upset, almost hysterical, which I had expected. Her condition was actually better than I expected it to be, post-anesthesia, frankly. The nurse helped untangle her IV and got her to me; she was basically standing on the bed climbing me to get away from the nurse, so the hardest thing was making sure the IV wasn't going to be pulled. Her gown had fallen off mostly, and she just sat on my lap, her head on my shoulder, covered by a blanket to keep her warm. We had the foresight to bring her blankets and paci and her stuffed tiger, and these things gave her comfort too. Eventually her sobs trailed off, and she fell asleep on me.

She slept that way for a good half an hour, while the nurse came in and discussed discharge instructions and mentioned that she wanted to see Caetlin drink some juice and keep it down before we could go home. At 1:15 we woke her up, and she drank half the sippy of juice we brought with us. She kept it down just fine, and besides being a tiny bit scratchy-voiced from the breathing tube, was basically herself again. The first thing she asked for was that the IV be taken off (completely understandable!), and when the nurse came to let us go home she was completely compliant in letting her pull the tape off, even going so far as to point out the remaining tape to the nurse.

Other than being a slight bit cranky, she's entirely herself, though it's unclear whether the cranky is because she's tired or a lingering effect of the anesthetic. She even went to the park with Bruce this afternoon and had a great time. She went down early and immediately- there weren't even any bedtime stories because she was just too tired. We were told there may be some slight burning on urination for the first couple of times, and we've witnessed that a couple of times this afternoon, so hopefully that's all behind her. There's a small risk of ureter obstruction over the next couple of days, but otherwise she should be completely fine. Diet and activity levels are all allowed to be normal.

We go back to the urologist in one month, to check her via ultrasound, and then will follow up with another of the dreaded VCUG exams in 2 or 3 months. Hopefully that will show that the abnormality (check out the photo at the link for a good picture of the problem) has been corrected by this procedure. As I may have mentioned, it won't stop her from getting UTIs, to the extent that she is susceptible to them. It should, however, stop them from getting to her kidneys. Assuming a normal VCUG, we can also stop giving her the prophylactic antibiotic, which we've all come to hate at this point (the new one tastes terrible, and we've had to resort to giving it to her in a small amount of ice cream every day).

Anyway, that's one thing down before Segunda. I see my regular OB tomorrow, at which point we'll nail down an induction date. I have something to do every day this week, so it is a busy week at this point. Saturday I am registered for a breastfeeding class that I am really hoping I can attend, so knock on wood that my health stays good and Segunda stays inside until Saturday afternoon.

In other news, I believe I've caught the cold that made its way between Bruce and Caetlin, despite not touching either one of them and having basically worn away the skin on my hands washing or alcohol-sanitizing them for the last 4 days. I'm so freaking annoyed at this, and worried about what it means for labor and delivery, and tired because I'm not sleeping enough, and generally cranky and tired of being stuck in my house, that I'm really not in a good place about everything right now. So it's nice to have one less thing to worry about, for once.