Surgery's Over!

Sydney's surgery is over and she's doing great. Thank goodness. I feel so relieved that it is finally behind us.

We got to the hospital a little after 5:00 am Thursday morning. Once they got us checked in we were escorted to the pre-op area where we answered and asked a billion questions and got Sydney changed into a mini hospital gown. Around 7:30 am the doc came in to talk with us about the procedure and let us ask him our remaining questions. After that, we prayed for Miss Sydney and the nurse carried her off for surgery....and I cried.

I, of course, cried on and off though out the entire morning. It was hard having them carry my little girl away. :( But according to most everyone we talked to, our surgeon is a really wonderful guy, one lady even said the reason he was really great was because he was a husband and dad first, and then a surgeon—he gets it.

My mom and Ryan's work chaplain stayed with us while Sydney was in the surgery, which was a nice distraction. Before we knew it 3 hours had passed and the doc was walking though the doors to give us a report on the surgery. She did great, everything went smoothly and the doc was very pleased with the outcome.

After that we were able to go and see her in recovery. She was super groggy and out of it and a little puffy from the anesthesia, but it felt so good to hold her in my arms. The recovery nurse said she'd gotten VIP service, someone carried her into the operating room, someone carried her out and handed her to the recovery nurse who then just passed her into my arms. Normally kids are wheeled in and out in beds or cribs, but not our sweet Sydney. :)

When a room opened up, we were moved to the floor for the rest of our stay at the hospital. The orders were to give her pain meds and antibiotics around the clock and not to feed her anything for 48 hours. I had no idea that this would be the hard part.

The rest of Thursday went alright, Sydney mostly slept as the effects of the anesthesia were wearing off. But by Thursday night she was getting pretty uncomfortable and hungry. Ryan and I had to switch off holding her through out the night because she didn't want to be put down. Friday was even worse. She would only sleep for 45 minutes or an hour at a time before she woke up crying because she was so hungry. Ryan and I pretty much spent Friday cuddling her and trying to keep her distracted from her hungry belly. Poor baby. :(

By late Friday night I think that Sydney had sort of adjusted to being hungry. She ended up sleeping fairly well, and was much more relaxed. Same with Saturday morning.

At 11:00 am this morning (Saturday) we got the word that we could start feeding her! I've never been so excited to feed my baby. I pumped a 3 ounce bottle and she went to town on it. At one point I pulled the bottle away to burp her and she was NOT happy. She wanted more! After that we waited an hour to make sure she was keeping everything down alright (which she did) and then I was told I could feed her normally. YAY!

Now we're just waiting for that milk to make its way through her system. They said that they'd like to see her have a normal bowel movement before we go home. So now we wait. Hopefully it's sometime this evening so we can go home today. If not it should be tomorrow.

Cameron has had a great time hanging out with Mimi and Granne the last few days. We miss her like crazy but are so grateful that our family is here to help us out. FaceTime has been awesome because we've been able to see her and talk to her every night.

So that's the run down. Thank you Jesus for keeping our little girl safe! I'm so grateful that the surgery is behind us now and that everything seems to have gone well. Now we're just praying that everything heals up well. Thanks to those of you who have been praying for us. The prayers are greatly appreciated.