Surgery

I will apologize in advance for such a long post. I can safely say that August 27, 2013 was one of the most stressful days of my life. That was the day that Kenley had her very first surgery. We arrived at the hospital at 5:00 in the morning for paperwork and pre-ops but she wasn't allowed to have anything to eat for the hours before, so you can imagine how mad she was. At 6:00 they called us back into the room and we started the process of getting her vital signs, signing forms, and each doctor explaining everything to us. This first surgery a few things were going to happen, she would have tubes put into her ears, her nose would be shaped and her cleft lip sown together. As the clock got closer to reaching 7:00 the more anxious and nervous I became. When the anesthesiologist and scrub nurses came in I completely broke down and was holding Kenley as tight as I could. All too soon they said that the sooner they could get started the sooner it would be done. They allowed me to carry her to the outside of the operating room but when it came time to hand her over I just couldn't make myself. I was a crying mess and Fred kept telling me to give her to them. They had to basically take her away from me because I couldn't let go of my precious baby girl. After they took her we sat down to wait for the updates to see how she was doing. The time passed by so slowly but finally we heard that she was doing good and they were almost done. When she was done we were allowed to go into recovery to be with her while she was waking up. I wish that somebody would of warned me about how scary that was going to be! When we opened the doors to the recovery room we could hear her crying except it sounded very rough. She was covered in wires and her arms were restrained so that she couldn't mess with her mouth or nose. The nurse handed her to me and she felt so heavy and stiff. She was still trying to come out of the anesthesia so she was confused and jerking her head and body around. My heart was racing and tears were pooling in my eyes because she looked miserable and her cry was so hard for me to hear. A tube had placed in her nose to help hold it in place until it heals and she isn't used to breathing out of her nose so she was freaking out. Every breath she drew her whole body shuddered and she gasped for air. It was very scary to listen to that and they keep saying that she was ok and it was normal. I tried to give her a bottle but she held her breath when she would drink so then of course she would choke which made her even more upset. Anyways it was a scary few hours in recovery but we were discharged the same day and drove the 3 hours home. I'm thankful that the day is over because it was hard of this mommas heart but I know that it was necessary.