Sometimes things just happen.....

Well - It's been a heck of a week! I know I posted last that Brady's surgery was scheduled for Thursday. Well on Wednesday Brady had a terrible day. He was pretty much crying/screaming/throwing up for most of the day. He was no a happy baby so that made for one very unhappy mommy! It was the worst experience of my life, yeah all babies cry and have bad days but in my short 10 weeks of being a mother I just knew when something was wrong. Typically when Brady cries we know ways to comfort him and he usually settles down after a little while but this day was different! There was NOTHING I could do to settle him down! This was exhausting! I didn't even get a chance to go to the bathroom until noon when I decided that I just had to put him down and let him cry for a while. I then decided to put a call into Brady's dr. When I called they said that his dr was not in so I could call the nurse in the office, I took her number and gave her a call. She didn't answer the phone so I left a message. In the meantime I called my mom to explain to her what was going on - she was shocked at how he was crying/screaming. I was shocked that she could hear him since I was in the kitchen and he was in his room! Waiting for the nurse to call back felt like FOREVER! She finally called back and suggested that we come right in, we could see the other dr that had hours that day.

It was heartbreaking watching Brady cry, this was a cry like I have never heard before. He was looking me right in the eye while he cried - I seriously felt like he was begging me to help him. I think this is something only mothers could understand. It was breaking my heart that he was in so much pain and there was nothing I can do for him. I am supposed to be the one to make everything better and here I was having no idea what to do to comfort my baby.

I didn't know how I would get out of the house, as i told you I only went to the bathroom at noon so you know I didn't get a chance to even look in the mirror. I put a onesie on Brady and threw some stuff in the diaper bag and was on my way to the dr. Chris left work (because I called him like a frantic crazy person) and he was meeting me at the dr's office. Brady cried the whole way to the dr :(

When we got to the dr the nurse that I talked to came in and she got to experience the type of crying that I was telling her about on the phone. We then saw the dr and he said that he was going to call the surgeon to get him opinion on what we should do. Ends up the surgeon was at the hospital so they told us to come right over. This will be the 2nd time in my life that I was at a dr's appointment and they tell me just to go right to the hospital. You think I would have learned and packed a bag this time - it really was something I had planned for that day but Brady had other plans!!!!

So, we went right to the hospital emergency room to meet with the dr. We waited for about 35 minutes for the dr to see us. He determined that Brady's hernia popped out and was stuck. Since it was out for so long it became swollen so it was unable to pop back in. The dr had no choice except to force it back in - to do this he just had to put a lot of pressure on it until he forced it back in. Once again I heard that high-pitch cry (which we now know is the cry of pain) and I experienced once again Brady looking me in the eye like he was saying "Mommy help me, make it stop".... ugh the worst feeling EVER! The dr kept saying to me "it will only be a few more seconds then he will be back to himself". Those seconds felt like hours to a new mother watching her baby cry in pain!!!!!!!!! But, the dr was right - about a minute after the hernia was pushed back in I had my baby back! It was great not seeing him in pain anymore. The dr then decided that we would be admitted to the hospital to get ready for surgery the next day. He assured us that since the hernia was swollen it would not pop out again.

We waited about another hour or so for our room in the pediatric unit. It was really sad walking into a hospital room meant for little kids. I never thought I would be back at that hospital almost 11 weeks after giving birth. Yeah, I knew I would be back at some point... i do have a son and boys get bumps and bruises but they aren't supposed to need hernia surgery at 11 weeks old!!!! It was hard to not feel sorry for Brady, I know he will not remember any of this but this is something that I will never forget! He has already been through so much in his short life I just don't understand why he has to be the one to go through all of this, he's just too little!

The first night in the hospital was OK - Brady's last feeding was to be at 6AM because he couldn't have anything to eat for 6 hours prior to surgery. I knew this was going to be very challenging trying to keep an 11 week old baby from eating for 6 hours! My mom stayed with me at the hospital and we took turns keeping him occupied. Oh, at like 5:30am they came to take Brady for some blood work and to start his I.V. - he was gone for a while and I was starting to get nervous. When the nurse finally brought him back to me she said to me "he's a fighter" - I didn't question her at all because I know he is a fighter - but she then told me that they had a hard time finding his vein for the IV so they had to put it in his foot. This didn't surprise me because I have bad veins too. Well what I realized later was that he had about 8 other prick marks on his hands, arms, & feet! They pricked my baby 8 times before they finally got the IV in... no wonder the nurse thought he was a fighter! After my anger subsided from him being pricked so much I then found out that they were running late with the surgeries before Brady so we were delayed an hour. My first thought "we now have to occupy him another hour". Well it was a long 9 hours!!!! Between my mom and I passing Brady off to one another to rock him, or us singing silly songs (thanks to my laptop and all the songs I had) like "green grass grows all around" & "John Jacob", and even the nurses lending a hand so my mom and I could go for a short walk down the hall the time finally passed and it was time for surgery!

When it was finally time to bring Brady down to surgery it felt like the longest walk!!!!! Of course he cried the whole way and my heart was breaking every second. But, the funny thing is that when we got to the surgery area his crying stopped when EVERYONE was paying attention to him. I think he is going to be a ladies man! Once everyone was busy and no one was paying attention to him the crying started again! Hahahaha! It was really hard to lay him back down in that hospital crib to be taken off to surgery, I heard him cry until I got in the elevator to go to the waiting room.

The surgery took about an hour and a half - then we got the phone call that we could go to recovery to see him. By this time Chris was already at the hospital and we couldn't wait to see him. When we got down to recovery a nurse was holding him, he looked pooped and he was trying to make noise/cry but he couldn't. When the nurse handed him to me I just lost it, my emotions were already all over the place and this just threw them over the edge. I had so many mixed emotions but I was so happy that this was finally over and he was no longer in pain and we could only go up from here! I know this wasn't a major surgery and it happens to a lot of baby boys but we are talking about MY baby boy! My first born! My preemie! My 11 week old baby! So it was a very BIG deal to me! We then headed up to his new room in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit). The Dr. decided that it would be better for Brady to be in the PICU for his last night in the hospital because preemies have a tendency to hold their breath after getting anesthesia. This did happen for a very short period of time in the recovery room but he didn't need any help waking up from the anesthesia like they thought he would - see, he is a fighter! It was very hard for me to see Brady hooked up to the same monitors/machines that he was for 3 weeks while being in the NICU. I felt like I was just coming to terms with his whole delivery and was able to put everything in the past but it was just brought back again. The monitors they had in recovery and the monitors in the PICU were not compatible so the had to get him re-hooked up to the machines. During this time he was NOT happy at all - I was holding him while the nurses were trying to get everything hooked up. I felt my emotions getting the best of me, the nurses suggested that I put Brady down and go for a walk down the hall with Chris. This was a good idea when we came back into the room everything we good. I was exhausted but I also couldn't wait to spend quality time with my baby. We met our new nurse and she was GREAT! She even offered to take care of Brady overnight for me so that I could get some rest. Well, as much rest as I could the chair/recliner thing I had to sleep on was NOT comfortable at all but I knew Brady was in good hands.

The next day I was very happy to see Chris and I also knew that we would be going home today! I was told that the recovery would be pretty easy for Brady we had to give him some medicine for pain and make a follow up appointment in 10 days with the surgeon. It was great to get home that night - Brady has been doing well ever since.

Overall I had a very different experience at Valley Hospital this time around. I LOVED everything about the hospital/nurses/staff when I was there for Brady's birth! This time around I felt like the nurses definitely were not as attentive to us. I'm not sure if it was just my nerves and all the stress that I was under that made me feel this way or if the experience was truly different.

Thats all for now - I'm ready to move on from this!

xo

Jill