Baby is here!

I'm still trying to figure out a good nickname for him! It will probably take me a few posts to update everyone on his progress. He was scheduled to be born on Thursday at 9am, we were supposed to meet the birthmother on Wednesday. However, he decided to make his appearance 2 days early. He was born Tuesday around 2:30pm. He weighed 4 lbs 13 oz and was 19" even though he was 38 weeks! Once he was born they found out that his stomach and all of intestines were out. That was a much larger defect than we expected. Later Tuesday night they were able to do his first surgery. The surgeon put back in his stomach and placed the intestines in a bag that hung over him called a silo. Initially over the first night they just allowed gravity to pull back in some of his intestines. Because of the irritation of the amniotic fluid, his intestines were so swollen that they were almost as big as him, and we were told that the silo was completely full of his intestines.

Because his lungs have been able to have tons of room in his abdomen, he had to be placed on a ventilator to help him breath as his lungs adjust to sharing space with his stomach and intestines. He was also put on IV nutrition since he will not be able to eat until his intestines are in and working probably. Initially they put him on a paralytic so that he cannot move to mess with the silo. He is also on a sedative and pain medication.  Besides all that he also has a tube going into his stomach to help drain any fluid and a tube in his artery so they can get accurate blood pressure.

After scrambling to get ready, we were able to get into town around midnight Tuesday night. We got an update on the baby, got checked into our hotel, and went to bed. Because the birthmother was in a lot of pain, and we wanted to meet with her first, we had to wait around until 4:30pm Wednesday before we got to meet her or the baby. I will finish the story in my next post!