Sawyer and his surgeries....

February might become known as the month of surgery for Sawyer. We have known since Sawyer was a month old that he would need surgery to correct his Hirschprungs disease but he just had to make it to at least 10 lbs. At the beginning of the month, I took him in for a normal visit with his pediatric surgeon. The visits normally comprised of a five minute conversation asking how the irrigations were going and then we would be sent on our way not before setting up the next appointment because he didn't weigh enough. At that visit, Dr. Hoover took a look at Sawyer's hernias and determined we needed to go ahead and fix those. The original plan was to fix those at the same time as his other surgery but that obviously changed. His appointment was on a Wednesday and they said to come to WakeMed that Monday and they would take care of it. It seemed so fast and I wasn't too big of a fan of him having to have two different surgeries.

The night before his bilateral hernia repair was rough. Sawyer couldn't have anything to eat past midnight that night because his surgery was scheduled for 8:00 that following morning. From 3:00am on was rough. You can't reason with a three month old about why they can't eat. It was very tough when they took him back. I knew he was in good hands. We talked to several people from anesthesia because of my family history (big issues with general anesthesia) so I knew he was going to be monitored but it doesn't matter how many people talk to you, it is hard seeing them take your child away. The procedure took about an hour and he did really well. We had to stay overnight just because of his age but it all went well and his doctor decided to go ahead and do another barium contrast enema (a procedure that had been done on him while he was still in the NICU) just so they could take a look at how much of his colon they would have to remove. At that point, we were going to wait until March to have the pull through procedure. Right before we were discharged, Dr. Hoover let us know that he wanted to go ahead and schedule the procedure in two weeks instead. This would be a lot more involved. We would have to check into the hospital the day before surgery and he would have to be prepped just as if he were going to have a colonoscopy and his stay post surgery would be a couple of days.

 

Waking up from his hernia repair surgery

 

We checked into the hospital on the 10th at 11:00am. They started the medicine referred to as Go Litely because of the effect it has on your bowels. Well I think it works when you don't have issues going to the bathroom like Sawyer did. He ended up having a swollen belly and spitting up a lot because the medicine had no where to go since it was moving through him. We ended up stopping the meds and just irrigating him every couple of hours to clean him out. His surgery started at 12:00 and took about three hours. They ended up removing about 5 inches of his colon which we were told is pretty standard. He had a NG tube down his nose, was hooked up to an IV, and had a catheter and we were waiting to see when he would go to the bathroom. We ended up seeing poop on Tuesday morning. Not to sound like "that mom" but it was extremely exciting to see that because he was never able to do that on his own until now. Going to the bathroom on your own is definitely something that you take for granted. We ended up being able to leave the hospital on Thursday morning.

Waking up after his pull through surgery

 

Not a fan of the NG tube down his nose but can you blame a guy?

 

 A sign posted on his door before you walked in....picture taken and posted because you have to find some humor in all of this wherever you can....

 

Once everything was pulled out and he was allowed to eat, he got a lot happier!

 

Heading home!

Sawyer has been doing great. His surgical sites have healed well and he is going to the bathroom fine with no problems. Our biggest issue is diaper rash which we expected to occur. While I was getting food from the cafeteria one day, I ran into one of our favorite nurses from the NICU. I told her about Sawyer and she was saying how crazy it had been since we left. They had two different kids come in with Hirschprungs but they weren't able to tolerate the irrigates and had to have a temporary colostomy bag put in place. It made me feel so blessed hearing that. Most families don't have to wait as long as we did for their kid to get to 10 lbs so the odds were not stacked in our favor for the irrigations working. This whole experience has been a real game changer in regards to my faith. I have always struggled with taking things to God because I always felt that I should try and take care of it on my own first. But all of these things have been so out of my control and I have had no choice but to step out in faith. We couldn't do a thing to help Sawyer except pray that God would take care of him and he has. This has been quite the journey and fortunately the hard part has ended. We look forward to figuring out what out new "normal" will look like!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last few weeks

These last few weeks have been good but of course, busy as usual. Ainsley has started consistently sleeping from around 9:00 - 4:00 but Sawyer has not jumped on the sleeping bandwagon just yet. He has given me some four hour stretches but doesn't seem to grasp the concept of sleeping more than three hours at a time. I know he will get there eventually.....Both kids are really starting to become more expressive now. Both are smiling and giggling and "talking" now which is really fun to watch. My mom says watching both kids side by side is like watching a tennis match. Back and forth and back and forth trying not to miss what smile or laugh they are going to give us.

On a recent visit to the pediatric surgeon, Sawyer's doctor decided they needed to go ahead and take care of both of his hernias. The original plan was to take care of them when he had his pull through surgery to correct his Hirschprungs but the doctor didn't want to wait. His appointment was on a Wednesday and his surgery was this past Monday morning at 8:00. He did great. Because of his age, we had to spend one night in the hospital for observation. While we were there, they went ahead and did another contrast x-ray on his colon. Upon looking at the x-rays, his doctor decided he wanted to go ahead and schedule his pull through surgery. Originally, he wanted to wait until March to get a little more weight on him but he didn't want to give Sawyer's issues anymore time to get worse. So surgery is scheduled for Monday, February 10th. The surgery should take between two to three hours and it will involve a couple of nights stay in the hospital. While we are nervous about the surgery, we are excited for it to all be over with. Dealing with his issues hasn't been as horrible and time consuming as I originally thought it would be but I am looking forward to not having to schedule an irrigation for him or have Brad go out to buy more saline. In the end, I am glad that he has already had one surgery. I know what to expect for pre-op, what he looks like coming off anesthesia (heart breaking), and what to pack for the hospital. We are trusting in God that everything will go smoothly during surgery and that Sawyer can be healed.

Here are a few pictures from the past few weeks with the kids....

 Our tiny man resting up after his surgery. The staff on the pediatric floor were great!

 Headed home from the hospital!

 This kid loves to fix things now. His grandparents got him quite the elaborate tool bench and he routinely likes to "fix things" around the house.

 He attempted to put his pants on by himself....not so effective!

 Me taking the twins to the doctor by myself for the first time. I could have used at least two additional hands but we made it!

He was supposed to be napping. We have learned in the past couple of months that you can't leave anything in his room for him. We also have to close the door to his bathroom and the twins room as well.

Christmas 2013

This was the first year since Brad and I have been married that we were home on Christmas day. We even commented several times that it actually felt really weird not loading up the car and driving somewhere. For the first time since we have been going to the Summit, Brad and I were able to attend their Christmas service at the DPAC. It was awesome and we were so glad that we were able to go. We spent Christmas Eve and day here at our house with my parents and my best friend Rachel. We ate our traditional meal of ribs and they were awesome. It was great relaxing all day at the house. Lincoln really enjoyed Christmas this year. He of course loved getting into Santa coming and bringing presents but what was way cooler and more important was that we started to teach him what Christmas was really about. He was very consumed with how Santa ate the cookies and carrots that he left for him and still continues to bring it up to this day. If you ask him what he got for Christmas, he will just talk about Santa taking the food. Not sure if he has some OCD tendencies but he refused to open up a gift unless every bit of wrapping paper was taken off the box. Naturally its more fun to unwrap the gift and then move onto another one just like its more fun to play with the box instead of the gift inside the box. It was so much fun watching Lincoln open up his gifts. Watching the chaos Lincoln created opening gifts made Brad and I realize how nuts its going to be in our house on Christmas morning the next couple of years. The thing I am most proud of is that we successfully survived a trip to my grandma's house. It took forever to pack up everything and load everything up but we made it. All three kids did great in the car and we all made it back and forth in one piece. One thing we have learned is that it takes so much longer just to get out of the house with three kids. Add Christmas presents and a dog and you have an extremely full car. It was so great to be around family. It was hard not being with my extended family at Thanksgiving due to the twins just having come home from the hospital and was so great to finally have my family meet Sawyer and Ainsley. Needless to say, I didn't end up holding either of the kids much that day. I don't think either of them got put down at all that day. Christmas 2013 was a good one and here are some pictures below.

 

Lincoln's reaction seeing that Santa ate the cookies, carrots, and milk that he left for him.

No, Ainsley doesn't take a very good photo at this point.

 Christmas eve Pj's

 Pretty sure most family pictures are going to look like this for a long time.....

What we have been up to....

 

 You give the boy one M&M and this is what happens.

 Lincoln's letter to Santa Claus he made one morning at Chick fil a....he did have some help from Brad in case you can't tell.

 We ventured out to Target as a family of five and survived!! The store was packed so we got a lot of double takes and hearing "whoa, they have two babies!" Guess we should get used to that from now on.....

Halloween 2013

This past Halloween was Lincoln's 2nd time dressing up but we count this as his first time officially trick or treating. He had a Halloween party at his daycare and a trunk or treat at my school before going out on Halloween night in our neighborhood. This year, he was Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. He had a really good time getting dressed up and even wore the wig the entire time. He ended up only wanting to be out for around half an hour (which was totally fine with us!!). We of course "inspected" his candy as all good parents should do. I think his favorite thing was dumping all the candy out of his bucket and then putting it back in. He did pretty good with the candy, actually ate some, and was good about when we told him that was his last piece for the day (as good as any two year old would). We look forward to what next Halloween is going to look like with three in tow!

 Couldn't quite keep his pants up...sadly Jake's outfit doesn't come with a belt like Lincoln needs these days.

 Trunk or Treat at DDMS

 

Hide your gold doubloons....

 The twins choose to take this Halloween off and chilled in the NICU at Cary. Until next year.....

Sawyer and Ainsley are home

After five very long weeks, we can thankfully say that Sawyer and Ainsley are home from the hospital!!! Sawyer came home on Saturday, the 16th, and Ainsley on Sunday, the 17th. This has not been the easiest on our family. We have burned many a mile on the highway going back and forth to visit the kids at the hospital, often multiple times a day. Although I can't say these past few weeks have been easy, I can say that I am thankful we made it through in one piece and it was the grace of God that lead us through this time. We had a few bumps in the road along the way. Sawyer was having issues going to the bathroom since birth and was causing him to be in a lot of pain all throughout the day. After two procedures and a trip back to WakeMed Raleigh, we learned that Sawyer tested positive for Hirschprung's disease. He will need to have surgery to fix the issue once he is at least 10 pounds. We have to do irrigations twice a day until surgery but we are so thankful the doctors were able to figure out what was going on with him and we have a solution on how to fix it. Ainsley, who we thought only was going to have issues the first few days of her life having to be on a ventilator for two plus days, decided that she was going to have issues drinking from a bottle. She would have apnea episodes where she would gulp down her milk and forget to breathe. Very scary but she has learned how to control her eating and has learned to slow down a bit when it comes to eating.

Brad and I are very thankful for medical technology. Myself and the twins received great care all along the way and we can't say enough about all of the neonatologists, nurse practiononers, doctors, and nurses that worked on our kids every day.  I am very excited to wake up and not have to go to a hospital. We are so grateful for all the support and kindness that both WakeMed Raleigh and Cary gave us every single day. Having all three kids under one roof is a blessing!

Lincoln's last official meal as an only child.

 

He has done pretty good with them so far. He has been sweet giving them hugs and kisses when we ask him to but we have already had to have talks about be quiet when the twins are sleeping and not throwing things across the room because of what it could hit. I found his cup in the pack n play yesterday afternoon after he had launched it over the couch. Its about to get really interesting here at the Davenport Den!

Sawyer and Ainsley

Sawyer & Ainsley decided to be born on October 11. They were a little bit early, eight weeks to be exact! After spending five days in the NICU over at WakeMed Raleigh, the kids were transferred over to WakeMed Cary. It has been so nice being over there. Not only does it cut the distance in half for us, there are usually around five kids in the special care nursery at any given time. It is so much less stressful of an environment over there and the nurses are great. Right now I am going over there twice a day to visit with the kids and helping them learn to eat. It is a pretty slow process but overall they are doing good. They started sleeping together in the same crib last week and have a lot less tubes and wires on them. As of yesterday, Sawyer weighed in at 4 lbs 2 ozs and Ainsley was 4 lbs 6 ozs. They still have to be eating on their own before they can come home but we are thinking both of the kids will be home by Thanksgiving. Right now, Ainsley appears to be winning the race of who is going to come home first.....So far we don't see that they look alike too much. They have the same nose but that's about it. Sawyer is too busy looking exactly like Lincoln did as a newborn and is a dead ringer for his dad. Jury is still out on whole Ainsley looks like.

 

 

 Sawyer

 Ainsley

 Sawyer

 Ainsley

Both kids like to squirm but we have started to notice that after you lay Ainsley down, she starts to creep closer and closer to Sawyer.