Baby Elliott gets 3 Surgeries in 4 days

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Our little guy has been through a lot in his first week of life.  First he was delivered via C-section under the harsh bright lights of a very cold operating room, where he was yanked from his warm cozy home of 9 months.  Then he was circumcised on his second day of life.  They assured us that the local anesthetic they applied would keep him from pain, but I'm sure it was still traumatic.  We thought after that he would be able to recover and get started with the business of living his life without further prodding and poking.  And then, on day 4, we visited the pediatrician.



A bit of background info - right from the start Elliott was a strong, healthy looking kid.  When it came to eating he latched on right away and had no problem sucking away for 20-30 minute spurts.  We counted our blessings that he was such a good eater since we are planning to breast feed.  However, in the hospital the doctors and nurses were concerned that he was losing more weight than was typical.  Nights were incredibly difficult, and we could not get him to stop crying (keep in mind, we hadn't slept since Friday night, so by Tuesday night we were pretty wasted).  I thought that bringing him home would help calm him down, with out the regular interruptions in the middle of the night by hospital staff.  Wednesday night, our first at home, was the worst yet.  At his midnight feeding time he started screaming at the top of his lungs, and wouldn't latch on for anything.  Working on my 5th night in a row without sleep I also had a break down.  I was so worried that I wasn't going to be a good mom, that Elliott was going to be a difficult baby/child/teenager.  Luckily Steve and my mom were close by - they took Elliott and sent me to bed.  An hour later he calmed down enough for me to feed him, but he was still fussy and woke up frequently throughout the night for feedings.

On Thursday we went to see the pediatrician, who within 5 minutes of examining him discovered that he was "tongue-tied".  His little tongue was secured to the bottom of his mouth by a flap of skin, preventing him from extending his tongue.  The pediatrician went on to explain that because of this he was unable to feed well.  No wonder baby Elliott was so fussy during the first few days of his life - the poor little guy was trying so hard to eat, but couldn't do so efficiently with his handicapped tongue.  For being tongue-tied he was a pretty noisy guy.

Our pediatrician is fantastic.  Right away she whipped out her cell phone, and scheduled us an appointment with her preferred ear, nose, and throat doctor for that day.  It was a very simple procedure.  Steve held him in the operating chair, and a nurse held his mouth open while the doctor applied a local anesthetic and then very delicately cut the flap of skin with a small pair of scissors.  He explained that there were very few nerves in this piece of skin so Elliott shouldn't feel much.  It worked like magic.  Right away Elliott started feeding better, and at our follow up appointment with the pediatrician on Monday he had gained a half a pound.  We weighed him again today and he has now caught up with his birthweight.  Elliott has become a much calmer, happier baby.  For the past 3 nights he has slept in back to back 4 hour increments, which is totally doable in my book.  He also has more frequent periods of "quiet alertness" where we can make eye contact with him, and interact with him a bit more, which is a lot of fun.  I'm still amazed at how easy it is to spend our day watching his facial expressions and commenting on how cute he is.  I am sure there will be more rough patches ahead, but I know that our family will be strong enough to handle them.  We are still loving every minute of parenthood, and every minute we get to spend with baby Elliott.

Waiting for the doctor before getting Elliott's tied-tongue fixed

Milk Coma! Elliott finally gets a good meal

So fascinated with the world around him

Finally we all get a good night's sleep

Another milk coma because they are so darned cute.  Our lactation nurse said they should come off the breast looking like a drunken sailor with milk dribbling out.  Elliott has that one down!

One last photo before Grandma and Papa leave
(it was really hard for them to say goodbye to our little cutie)