Pisces, Virgo rising is a very good sign, strong and kind,
And the little boy is mine.
-Danny's Song, the inspiration for his middle name
The good thing in all this waiting? He held out to the 19th - looks like I'll be getting my little Pisces boy after all!
And while we're on astrology, my horoscope for today: An indecisive friend is trying your patience. Give them a less-than-gentle nudge. Heh. He was insanely hyper last night, and I swear I managed to grab his knee and tell him to cut it out - does that count?
No change, other than that Sammy seems to have dropped even further down - there's a huge empty space at the top of my belly that wasn't there yesterday. For the record - walking lots? Nothing. Pineapple? Nada. I refuse to go the castor oil route, and eggplant makes my stomach turn. Oh well.
If he doesn't come on his own, we go in Wednesday morning for a scheduled induction. I'm not thrilled about this - I'd rather my body do what it knows to do - but at least this way we know we'll get the weekend with him before his surgery.
Once he's born, they'll take him for evaluation. Our hope is that we'll get fifteen minutes or so with him before they take him. The nurse who runs the floor told me that if he looks good, I'll get a chance to try to feed him. Yippee!
He'll go to NICU first, where they'll start his IV (prostaglandin) to keep the ductus open. After, he may come back to my room in one of those heater units, but it's more likely he'll go to CICU (Cardiac Intensive Care Unit).
Once I'm settled and feeling up to it, I can get wheeled over to the CICU and spend whatever time I want with him, even if I haven't been discharged yet. I don't think I'll be able to feed him once he's in the CICU - they'll feed him via IV. They'll do the echo and other tests on him there to determine just what needs to get done during his surgery.
They don't do scheduled surgeries on the weekends, so as long as nothing of an emergency nature comes up beforehand, he likely won't have his surgery until Monday the 27th at the earliest. It could be Tuesday, it could be Wednesday.
After that, it's up in the air. I hate to think about what our time in recovery is going to be like - he'll be paralyzed and sedated for a while afterwards, to help with the healing and the pain. My understanding is that his chest will be open for about three days, should they need to go back in and do anything else. Once it's closed, they'll start to ween him from the morphine, and then we work on feeding and weight gain. We could be there anywhere from two weeks to, well, who knows.
As for updates - we'll have access from Children's Hospital. I'm sure in those first few days we'll be camera happy, and I'll be updating regularly once he has his surgery to let everyone know how he's doing.
Friends and family - please know that while we'd love for you to see him, if you've been sick or have been exposed to any sort of illness, we need you to wait until you're healthy to meet him. I know - it'll be hard! - but we can't risk getting him sick. :-(
Thanks so much for all your support the past few months - it means more to us than you know.
Hi guys!
I finally got all caught up on the site. I feel a little famous since we were mentioned :) Looks like we'll be in the CICU for at least another night so maybe Ellie and Sammy will be neighbors (at least for a night!) You guys have been so great to Chris and I. We are such kindred spirits. (I love it!) I'll be thinking of you all day tomorrow!
Posted by: Alicen at February 21, 2006 07:54 PMLots of love,
Alicen