April 27th was the C-Section date. It went smoothly for the most part, besides my nerves. Brent sat with me during the actual process of "removing" him. I had an upset stomach and the pressure they put on it to get him out didn't help, but i felt no discomfort other than that. I honestly don't remember the exact moment i knew he was out, i'm pretty sure the doctor said something like "he looks good" but i don't remember. I remember hearing him cry, i started crying too. It was by far the sweetest sound i have ever heard. He was 6 pounds 12 ounces, 19.5 inches long. They let Brent get up and take pictures of him and they let me kiss him real quick before he was whisked off to the NICU. My family saw him and got some pictures on his way there, only Brent went with him. The whole process took less than an hour and I was stitched up and wheeled to recovery. I spent Chance's entire back surgery, which was done at 3 hours old, in the recovery room. My family came in and showed me pictures. He was and is the most beautiful and perfect creature i have ever seen.
Chance has not needed a shunt as of yet. His ventricles are "large but stable" according to the doctors. As of today, a week, they have done 3-4 head ultrasounds to keep an eyes on the ventricles, and they measure his head circumference every 3 hours. He originally was retaining too much fluid. He was peeing, but after a renal ultrasound showed their was residual urine left in his bladder, cathing was ordered. He started at every 6 hours, I of course balled the first time they did it. They were getting 25-30 ccs every 6 hours. His puffiness went away after they started this. The last few days they haven't been getting anything from the cath and he has good urine output on his own - so they taught us to cath him and moved the time to every 12 hours. We will need to know how to do it in case he starts retaining urine again when he is at home. I was terrible the first time, but better the second. Brent did perfectly the first time he did it, must be a guy thing :)
So we are at the Ronald McDonald House down the street so we don't have to travel 2 hours round trip to the hospital every day. It's very nice but we are so ready to be home with our son where we all belong. Chance is doing amazing. Besides a diaper rash from pooping so much and the hydrocephalus, he is perfectly healthy. He breastfeeds like a champ! We are still waiting for the results of yesterday's ultrasounds to see if he can go home without a shunt or not.
I am so ready to take him home from the NICU. It's a very emotional place and Chance is so healthy it seems being here is not necessary. They can't take care of him any better than I could at home. Crossing our fingers today we actually get some good news on when he can leave!
