Baby Brooklyn

My schedule is starting to normalize. What is incredible is Brooklyn's sleep schedule. She sleeps almost all night long. She'll usually wake up somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 and then fall asleep again until about 8:00 or so. It's awesome. That being said, I should start posting again tomorrow. I know you can't wait. JM

Schedule

It's tough to have a schedule with a new baby. I'll post regularly in a few days, until then it will be kind of hit and miss, well, really more miss. JM

Pacifier

Brooklyn loves her pacifier. Here's some pictures of her sucking on it and some pictures of her after they took off the first few sensors. She's done with her antibiotics now, and we're just waiting to see how she responds after they cap off the IV. JM

Scars

Ana Brooklyn has a little bitty scar below her belly button. The surgeon said that the skin incision is visible like that, but the incision underneath is perpendicular to that. JM

Not So Fast

Brooklyn will probably spend the night at the hospital for one more night. She's doing well, but still on the IV. At 2:00 they are going to try to feed her as much as she wants (they've been limiting her to 15 ml every 3 hours since the surgery). If she eats well for that, then they will cap off her IV. They'll wait 3 more hours and then check her blood sugars. If everything comes back clean, then we're good to go. But she also needs to get her hearing checked. So because of all of these things, it's probably going to be tomorrow.
Eryn is being discharged today, though. They're looking into whether or not we can stay in our room for one more night. Right now Eryn is still a patient, so we're all good. JM

Going Home

Eryn goes home today. We're going down right now to find out if Brooklyn gets to go home today, or if they'll want to keep her for one more day. She's doing well and is slowly being weaned off of her IV and taking in more formula. They moved her into a crib last night, out of the hospital warmer, so that's a good sign as well. I'll let you know what happens. JM

Post-Op

Brooklyn's chilling in the NICU now. She's still got her little wires and stuff hooked up to her, but they're slowly taking them off. It's cute, because she gets to hang out in the little warmer naked. JM

Surgery

The surgeon said that everything went well. The cyst had actually started to twist, so if we had left it alone, they probably would have had to eventually take it out along with her left ovary and fallopian tube. So that was reassuring. It's great now because we never have to think about this cyst again. JM

Wires

Here's what Brooklyn looked like before they took her back for surgery.


The doctors and nurses were wicked cool. They let me walk down with them near the O.R. I met the anesthesiologist, the surgeon, and the nurses. They explained everything that would happen and even some of the bad things that could possibly happen. It was really comforting. JM

Brooklyn's Surgery

Brooklyn just got out of surgery. Only took about 30 minutes. She did well. We're going to meet with the surgeon in about 30 minutes. Then we'll go see her in the NICU. JM

Brooklyn's Surgery

Brooklyn went into surgery at 12:50. JM

Brooklyn's First Trip

Brooklyn went downstairs just now. She's down in the NICU. They gave her a little IV and strapped a couple other monitors to her. She's just sleeping down there. I'll post some pictures later. JM

Before Surgery

They said we couldn't feed Brooklyn anymore before they take her to surgery, so hopefully they'll come pretty soon. That would be sad. They'll take her down and give her an IV soon. She has no idea, of course, but is just sleeping away.

You're Not My Mom

Ana really likes to act like the mommy. Yesterday she kept wanting to hold Brooklyn, give her a bottle, and feed her M&M's. JM

Surgery

We just finished talking to the pediatric surgeon. Surgery is scheduled for 12:40. Should be very simple, but still scary. She's so little and so pretty. JM

Settling In

We're starting to get used to being in the hospital now. Eryn is still in a lot of pain from pushing Brooklyn out of her body, but I'm feeling pretty good. Brooklyn just went to spend the night in the nursery. Tomorrow they'll do her surgery, unless we change our mind.
She has a 5 cm ovarian cyst. The pediatric surgeon said that we could either monitor it with weekly ultrasounds and it could spontaneously resolve, or we could do surgery tomorrow. We're going with the surgery. The risks are that she has to be fully sedated, a risk of infection at the incision, and a risk of rupturing something with the probe.
Basically they are going to make a small incision, go in laparoscopically, look around, burst the cyst, and pull out a small section to make sure it's benign. The fluid in the cyst as well as the cyst wall will be absorbed into Brooklyn's body.
If we just followed it without doing the procedure, then the cyst could get twisted and then they would have to remove the cyst, her left ovary, and her left fallopian tube. That seems less desirable, so we're just going to get it over with.
The surgery is supposed to be tomorrow afternoon, but I'll post when it is exactly so that you, dear reader, can pray for my beautiful daughter Brooklyn.
JM

Sir, 22:28, Sir

They have massive clocks in these labor and delivery rooms that display the time in military time. I guess the thought is that doctors can't afford watches to figure out what time the child was born. Either that or they all have poor vision. JM

Justice

Life is unfair. Look at the picture of my wife on drugs in the post below this one. She's happy. Look at the bed that the drug user gets to lie in. Now look at what I get. Labor & Delivery is unfair. Life is unfair. JM

Drugs

Drugs are magical. We all should use them. My wife was in pain. Her life was miserable. But drugs saved the day. Hooray for drugs!! JM

Curious

I'm a naturally curious person. Luckily, the hospital satiates my curiosity by showing me the contractions and fetal heart rates of every woman in the labor and delivery rooms (Eryn was room 3). I could watch this for hours. Especially if I had a buddy with me and we were placing bets. It's like an off track betting facility, only weirder. JM