Home at last

We've had a whirlwind couple of days. As you all probably know from E's previous post, our new little guy arrived on August 12, and everything looked fantastic with him. He was eating well, sleeping well, and generally looked like your regular guy (super handsome, of course).

On the early morning of August 13th, he still hadn't produced any stool yet, so they went to stimulate him to do it (read - take his temperature rectally). At that point they realized that something was a little bit off with our little man. He has something that is referred to as imperferate anus. Read about it on Wiki, I'll spare the details here. Because of this particular defect, they had to stop all feeds and hook him up to an IV. He was transported to Children's Medical Center of Dallas where they performed an emergency colostomy to enable him to pass stool. Needless to say, both E and I were stunned, terrified, insert-proper-adjective-here scared for B. This isn't something that can be seen in an ultrasound or any testing while they're in utero, so this was a complete shock to us. Plus, abdominal surgery on your child who is one day old is not exactly the thing you're expecting when you go into labor. He was in the NICU at Children's until yesterday afternoon, when we were discharged (hence the delay in posting).

B made it through surgery just fine, and now is wearing a colostomy bag on his side for a while. He'll undergo two more surgical procedures. The first will create an anus for him and connect all of his bowels properly so that he can go to the bathroom normally, but will leave the colostomy in place. This is so he can have an opportunity to heal before he starts pooping regularly. He'll then undergo a third surgery to remove the colostomy and reconnect everthing. This whole process will take about six months, give or take, depending on how he's doing and growing.

In addition to this, they did a number of tests at the hospital to check for things in the VACTERL association of birth defects (read at your own risk, it sounds WAY scarier on Wikipedia than what he's got going on). Essentially there are seven defects that are associated with each other, but a child with one may have some of the others, all of the others, or none of the others. They aren't really sure. But just in case, they checked him out for all of them. B exhibits a oddity in his kidneys - they both function totally normally, but instead of being on the left and right side of his back, they're both on the right. I'm thinking this gives him superpowers later in life if anyone tries to kidney punch him on the left. It was a relief to find out that even though they show an oddity, they are working perfectly, so it's just an interesting thing to know. In addition to that, one of his lumbar vertebre is shaped like a sacral vertebre, or something like this. This is something else the doctors are so not worried about, but because he shows it and the kidney thing in addition to the imperforate anus, he technically shows three of the seven characteristics of VACTERL, so he technically has this association. However, after his additional surgeries none of this should be a problem.

It's been pretty amazing how many people have reached out to us as either being related to someone who had this, knowing someone who had this, or had this themselves. It was an amazing relief to talk to a friend of ours who confided to us that she was born with this defect and we never knew it. She made us KNOW that B can have a perfectly normal life. We've just got to get through the next few months.

The good news for us is that after the next two surgeries, B should be like any other little boy. Right now he's wearing his bag, but it's not too terrible to deal with. We're really lucky in that his daycare is willing to work with us on this - so hopefully we won't have too many issues there. We were really concerned with how everything would work with me going back to work, but it sure sounds like they're going to be okay working with us on this - especially given that it's temporary.

B is otherwise a healthy little man. He's a week old today, and he looks fantastic. When he's dressed you can't even tell that he's any different than any other baby. His big brother is interested in him. I'm not sure that N really knows what to think, but he doesn't seem entirely opposed to the idea of having a little guy join our brood.

Please keep us in your prayers as we go through this. It's going to be a tough couple of months, but look at that guy? How can you not love that little face. He's perfect.