Eight weeks 4 days old

Evan's hernia surgery was a success! But, let's start at the beginning of the day.

When we got to the hospital, Evan was just starting to realize that he was several meals behind. He got his last meal at 3 am. He squeaked a little bit, but took right to his paci when we gave it to him. He sucked on that on and off right up until his surgery. He was pretty tolerant of the fact that he wasn't eating. I know I would have been suuuuper cranky.

Nom, nom, nom.

We gave him a bath around 10 am since he'll just have sponge baths for a little while as the incision site heals. We had hoped the bath would kind of distract him from the fact that he wasn't getting fed. It worked and he soon fell back to sleep.

Distracting me with a bath does not make up for the fact that I have STILL not been fed!

We took him down to surgery around 2:30 (right on time!!). After talking with the anesthesiologists  it was determined that they would really prefer to put him under general anesthesia. This would allow them to give him fentanyl for the pain. It would also mean that he would be intubated. Bummer. 

Once the surgery was over, the doctor came out to talk about the procedure. He had a very large hernia so it did take them a few extra minutes. Thankfully, Evan won't have any long term side effects from the surgery or hernia. He only had the hernia on his left side.

The doctors wheeled Evan back up to his room. He's under yet another type of bed (bed number 4 in his short life!) that has a heater above it to keep Evan warm. He looks gigantic in this bed!

I'm really happy Evan was able to have the hernia surgery so soon. The surgeon explained that she normally likes to wait until they're closer to going home before performing hernia repair. As Evan's comfort level may have been tied to the hernia, she was more open to operating sooner rather than later (and how lucky Evan was that they had a time slot for him today!). I think that we're going to see a big change in Evan. The doctor mentioned that we may see him much more happy now that the hernia is gone. Evan's already pretty happy so I can't wait to see that!

Evan was awake for a little bit after he came back upstairs. He even started moving around a little bit. We could see him trying to cry and maybe even cough out the tube in his throat. Thankfully he soon went back to sleep. We didn't want him fighting the ventilator too much yet since he's still under some pretty powerful drugs.

Momma? Is there a unicorn next to you or am I just on drugs?

When we left, the NICU doctor's had already started weaning Evan from the ventilator. Hopefully he'll be back on his wall oxygen in the next day or so. He's already down to room air but still needs the machine to help him to breathe. The fentanyl kind of acts as a respiratory depressant so they'll wait until it's fully through his system before they aggressively wean him. We're also hopeful that Evan will go back to eating tomorrow. They won't start him at full feeds just yet, but will slowly work him back up to the 37 mL that he was at.

It was a long day at the hospital, but still not as bad as some of the days that we've had. I missed snuggling him this afternoon and evening. Maybe we'll be able to snuggle tomorrow though!