Hailey's Surgery

Today Hailey had her surgery to get her skin tag removed. She was born with it and the doctors wanted to wait until close to a year old to get it removed because she would go under anesthesia. We could have tied it off when she was born (which is pretty common), but Hailey's pediatrician strongly recommended having it surgically removed because that guarantees all the cartilage to be removed. So we agreed and decided to wait until a year old. 

So today was the day. We had instructions that Hailey couldn't eat anything after 2 am this morning, so we woke her up at 1:30 and gave her a bottle. We figured it'd help lessen her hunger before the surgery. We went to the hospital at 7:00 this morning. They did a quick physical and we changed Hailey into the tiniest hospital gown I have ever seen. That was definitely my favorite part!

 

After we talked to the surgeon and anesthesiologist, it was time for Hailey to head into surgery. Travis gave her a Priesthood blessing before we left, which definitely helped me feel a little calmer.

 It was so hard to see her go. I had to fight the tears. The doctor said she didn't even shed a tear the whole time! She's so brave!

 

 Travis and I went into the waiting room. It was full of parents waiting for their precious child to be done with surgery. I was feeling pretty weepy at first (no tears though...suprisingly) until I realized Hailey's surgery was very minor compared to what these other parents might be going through. It was a hard place to sit. I tried to distract myself by searching through Facebook, Instagram, etc. Travis was smart and brought a book. We were only waiting for about 30 minutes when the doctor came in and told us it went very well and she did great. What a relief! Now we just had to wait for her to wake up. She told us it could take up to 45 minutes. It's different for everyone. Literally five minutes later a nurse came and got us and told us she was awake. Yipeee! We followed her back into the recovery area where some nurses were holding our crying baby. She had an IV in her hand and they were trying to feed her sugar water to test her swallowing. And she was NOT having it.

I took Hailey and gave her some milk. She was starving since last time she ate was 1:30 am. 

The IV in her arm was really bothering her. She was SO hungry, but couldn't eat for very long without taking a break to whine and cry. It was so sad. All I could do was give kisses and cuddles.

After they took the IV out and gave her some pain meds, she was feeling much better.

They discharged us and we left around 9:15. So the whole thing only took 2 hours and 15 minutes! Awesome!! We headed over to Walmart to pick up her prescription pain meds. She was pretty loopy, but happy, as we walked around Walmart.

So we're home. She already napped and is feeling great. We feel so blessed. So many people were praying and thinking of us during Hailey's surgery. We felt it. And it helped me stay strong. I know this surgery was pretty minor, but it's still hard to see your baby go through that. Thank you for all your support!

Don't worry. That's a smile.