Today’s the day. At 9 am this morning, Barrett was taken in for his mixed bag surgery. The laundry list of items includes a bilateral hernia repair {meaning both sides}, an orchiopexy {dropping his left nut}, separating a full simple syndactyly on his left hand and cutting a partial syndactyly on his right. Though it sounds like a “big” procedure, each piece is very routine and we’re quite fortunate that we’re able to knock it all out with one knockout.
When Barrett was born, the attending nurse came to my side and said “Ashli, there are a few things we want to talk to you about. First, we are going to take baby right away for some ultrasounds. We were unable to pass the tube from his mouth down to his tummy and are concerned that there may be a disconnect in the area from the esophagus to the stomach. Also, his fingers are webbed on both hands”. My joy turned to tears and I immediately understood the capacity to love a person you’d never met more than you have ever cared for anything else in life. Take our baby I thought… webbed fingers… I immediately stressed… will he be made fun of? will he be able to pick up toys? will he be able to wear a wedding ring {really… I did think of this.}. Jearlyn {my midwife} requested that they give us a moment with Snowball before they rushed him away and I was able to get a good look at his fingers. I had missed it when I did the once-over because his little tiny fingers were perfectly formed … just stuck together. The other issue at hand, t. fistula, ended up being a false scare {phew}.
The docs informed us on Barrett’s “condition” and educated us on the details of a syndactyly. We found out that while the fingers usually separate in the womb — this doesn’t always happen, it can be simple {connected by only skin} or complex {fused bones}, it can be partial or full, favors males and occurs in about 1 of every 2,500 births. Barrett has a full simple synactyly on his left hand conjoining his ring and middle finger and a partial simple synactyly on his right hand between the same digits. We were told that they would want to do surgery around 18 months and otherwise, it was all good and would never cause him pain or slow his development.
Much like Chandler, I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable, so for the last 11 months, Adam and I have made little one liners about B’s “jumbotron” but today is the day that the jokes end and while his fingers were not separated at birth, they will be separated at Children’s Hospital. The undescended testicle and bilateral hernia are extremely common in preems and since he had the necessity of surgery for all four items, the doctors decided to do it all in one fell swoop. The hernia incision and testicle will heal rather quickly and his hands will be casted for two weeks.
As we prepared for the surgery, I found myself having the same fears I had 11 months ago… will he be made fun of for having scars… will it be hard for him to use his hands… will he hurt because of it? But the truth is, doing the surgery at this age will make it so Barrett never remember it and he will heal so very quickly. If he were older, it would have been harder today because he would have been confused, he would have been able to understand what was about to happen, but instead, he was his happy-go-lucky self {“happiest 11 month old ever” – anesthesiologist} and got to go take a long nap. I will update with pics and such in the days to come…
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