Today Dean had surgery for an undescended testicle due to a hernia. When he was born they noticed it, but felt it was better to wait and see if it corrected itself. Once he was 2 and above 25lbs, they decided it was time to go in and make sure it was in place. We were told to arrive at 9:30am and that the surgery would be at 11. When we got there they sent us to the waiting room for about 3 minutes, then back to the area where they do intake. We heard someone tell the nurse that they wanted to fast-track him and by a few minutes after 10 the anesthesiologist had already taken him back to start the procedure. They told us surgery would be about an hour and then we'd probably spend about an hour in the recovery area before they sent us home.

The waiting in this kind of situation is, of course, the worst part. We grabbed some food since we didn't want to eat this morning in front of him since he wasn't allowed anything, then we sat and read. About 11:30 they took us back to the recovery room where we discovered that sweaty, screaming, cranky little monkey that we love so much had pulled out his IV and refused to stop crying long enough to get his 02 sat where they wanted it. We finally calmed him down some. They moved us to a more private room and after plying him with television, stickers and popsicles, we were able to get him relaxed and they sent us home.

They said everything went as expected, and that the hernia was good sized but everything is as it should be. He'll take it easy for the next few days and stay home with Mama. Otherwise all is well.

In other news, we've got some pictures and such that need to be uploaded, so hopefully we'll take care of that soon.

Wednesday night, Dean had a bottle about 8pm and then went to bed. At about 12:30 he woke up crying and wouldn't take a bottle, but continued to be very fussy. As he's got teeth coming in, we didn't think much of it. We gave him some tylenol and let him sleep in our bed. All night he was restless and very fussy. He'd wake up every hour or so and cry for a while. We'd get him to go back down to sleep, and then the cycle would repeat.

So, we decided to keep him home from day-care on Thursday. He ate a few Cheerios and some dried fruit, but not much and still wouldn't take a bottle. All day he was sleepy and lethargic. When I finally did get him to take some formula, a short while later he threw up. The rest of the day, he didn't want formula or juice, and the few times he took a few sips, they came back up in a few minutes. In the early afternoon I called his doctor's office and they said to keep pushing fluids and call back if he didn't improve. Around 7, since it had now been nearly 24 hours since he'd held down any fluids, we called the doctor again, and he said we should take Dean into the ER and they would see what was required to get him rehydrated.

The doctor that because Dean was dehydrated, he was nauseous and because he was nauseous, he wouldn't take fluids, and we needed to break that cycle before his dehydration became harmful. The said that they likely would do IV fluids to get his levels back up, and then once he was feeling better would try oral fluids again. Luckily this wasn't necessary. They said they would try anti-nausea medication first, because his dehydration level wasn't at a point of being dangerous, and they'd rather not stick needles in a baby (or anyone one else) if they didn't have to. Sure enough, within 5-10 minutes of getting the medication, Dean's normal personality was back. He wanted to play and interact with the people around him. They gave us some apple juice mixed with Pedialyte and he all but grabbed the bottle out of our hands. They had us start by letting him only eat for about a minute and then wait 10 minutes before giving him more. This annoyed him greatly. After about 20 minutes, they said to go ahead and let him eat what he wanted. He shortly finished almost all of the 6 ounces in the bottle, and they sent us on our way.

So, all in all, a little bit scary, but in terms of a visit to the ER, we couldn't have hoped for a better result. We'll have a follow up with is doctor in the next few days just to be sure everything is okay. But so far, so good.

SO here's the full story:

We loaded up the car at 6:00 am today and headed to the Dr’s office for our amnio. We arrived about 7:15 and waited for a few minutes for the U/S tech to arrive. She got there for a few minutes later. She did a quick scan and checked the size/weight. He was measuring about 36w6d (not 37w3d), well within normal variation for size.

There was a great pocket of fluid available for “tapping”. They started to clean the area with betadine and he immediately shoved his hands and feet into the pocket effectively filling the entire thing. They bounced the U/S probe on him a number of times trying to get him to move his arms out of the way with no luck. Our OB then tried to push him out of the way and open up the pocket. No luck.

The tech then looked for another pocket. She found a small one near his chest that was the best bet. They were able to get to that one, but it was difficult. The pocket was really deep. They had to go through the placenta and then they had to keep repositioning the depth and angle of the needle to avoid pricking him as he continued to move around.

Because it took longer than they would have liked it to and they had to push him around a lot, and they had to go through the placenta, my OB decided that we should go over to L&D and have NST monitoring. So we headed over there.

Within about half an hour of arriving in L&D they had our amino results. Negative for lung development. This of course means that the c-section was cancelled. The nurse brought me a big glass of ice water since I had not had any food or drink since midnight. They wanted to get a full hour of the NST so we continued monitoring for a bit. The NST was responsive. It did show a number of mild contractions (really more like Braxton Hicks, not painful), some of which I was feeling and some of which I wasn’t. They were short, like 10 seconds and not in a pattern. Then they released us.

We decided to go out for breakfast at IHOP (country fried steak with eggs and chocolate chip pancakes). While we were there, we decided that we would feel better if we stayed in the area around our hospital for awhile just in case since I was continuing to have the mild contractions occasionally so we decided to catch a movie. We stopped in the bookstore on the way from the parking garage to the movie theater to see if we could find a baby book that we like better than the one we have.

While were in the book store, the OB from L&D called my cell phone. They were reviewing my charts and realized that my BP was elevated a bit more than they would like to see and wanted me to go back into my OB’s office today or tomorrow and have them check it again. Off we went back to the OB’s office since we were close and did not want to have to go back again tomorrow. My BP was fine when they checked it there, my urine dip was clean so I got the all clear.

We headed back towards the movies. We parked in a different parking garage and went to the other bookstore. Never had any luck finding a baby book we like better. We saw Indiana Jones. Pretty good movie. If they write a good script and Shia LaBouf (sp?) plays his cards right he could be set for life after this role.

From there we headed home. We stopped at the grocery store to get a some produce and milk since we obviously had none because we had been expecting to not be back home for almost a week.

I’m still debating about going back to work for a few days instead of burning vacation time, but at least today, the contractions increased when I was up and about and pretty much disappear when I am relaxing sitting down so I’m definitely not going tomorrow. I’ll see after that.

We are not 100% certain what the plans are yet. My OB will do another amnio in 7-10 days and then do the c-section from there.

The one thing that I keep thinking is that if we use the dates that I was positive were correct from the beginning, putting our due date at June 25 instead of the June 15 that they changed it to, the amnio results are not at all unexpected. If the original dates are correct we were only at 36w today instead of 37w3d. Guess this is why amnio is good. Not entirely looking forward to doing it again, but it really wasn’t that bad.

Last week was our 29 week check up. We had another ultrasound to check growth, and everything checked out right on course. All of the measurements were right on par with the due date of June 15 we've been given. Nicole is still doing well. The arthritis has had a few flares, but for the most part she's doing well. So, as they say, no news is good news. We're going to a 2 week interval for apointments, and starting Non Stress Tests and some classes in the next couple of weeks.

The registries got some updates, and we had a fairly successful shopping trip to pick up some clothes. Now it's time to start figuring out the nursery... and probably a name at some point.

We had a check up this morning, and other than a wierdly high blood pressure reading (it was fine (118/64)after a do-over) everything is normal and on-track. Nicole's glucose test came back normal, her hemoglobin is still low (11.0), but higher than it was at the start of the pregnancy and her thyroid levels are stable (1.8). So far so good. We've got another sonogram and checkup in 4 weeks.