Hi, all!
I'm glad to have found this section of the forum. I think sometimes when people find out what our unborn son has ahead it makes them uncomfortable (not just online but in my own family). It will be nice to be able to chat with other moms who may have faced some of the challenges I have coming up.
Our little boy, Oliver, is due in July, but there's a good chance he'll be coming a bit early. I have polyhdramnios (too much amniotic fluid) so my body thinks I'm several weeks farther along than I actually am. I'm doing my best to hold on and let him keep baking a bit longer. Normally babies swallow amniotic fluid and it gets absorbed, but our boy has esophageal atresia (EA) - an incomplete esophagus - so he cannot swallow and, thus, too much fluid!
Once he's born Oliver will need his first operation - a g-tube placed in his stomach so he can eat. Depending on how his weight is and the specific form of EA that he has, is next surgery will likely be to have tension placed on either ends of his esophagus to encourage growth, then the next surgery will be to attach the ends of the esophagus together. His stay in the NICU could be anywhere from a few weeks to the better part of a year. There are a lot of unknowns - sometimes there are accompanying issues with the trachea that can require other procedures and sometimes there are a whole host of other problems that can accompany EA. We're banking on the easiest and most successful fix. If things turn out otherwise it'll be just as hard as if we had spend time worrying about all that now, so why bother?
I've been very fortunate to have met a couple of moms who have children with this same condition in our hospital's NICU right now. We've also met with the surgeon who'll be taking care of our little guy and, having been tipped off about his condition prior to birth, we've had a lot of opportunity to educate ourselves and come to terms with the whole situation. Oliver is our first (and likely only) child. I've spent a lot of years imagining the perfect pregnancy and exactly how I'd do things when it came to caring for my baby. A lot of that has to be thrown out the window now and, to be honest, it really pissed me off at first. I've gone through a LOT of emotions, actually - jealousy, anger, self-pity - but I think I've settled in a place where I am just happy that his condition is one that can be fixed. I'm still scared, too, but I'm more hopeful than anything else.
Thanks for letting me share!
I'm glad to have found this section of the forum. I think sometimes when people find out what our unborn son has ahead it makes them uncomfortable (not just online but in my own family). It will be nice to be able to chat with other moms who may have faced some of the challenges I have coming up.
Our little boy, Oliver, is due in July, but there's a good chance he'll be coming a bit early. I have polyhdramnios (too much amniotic fluid) so my body thinks I'm several weeks farther along than I actually am. I'm doing my best to hold on and let him keep baking a bit longer. Normally babies swallow amniotic fluid and it gets absorbed, but our boy has esophageal atresia (EA) - an incomplete esophagus - so he cannot swallow and, thus, too much fluid!
Once he's born Oliver will need his first operation - a g-tube placed in his stomach so he can eat. Depending on how his weight is and the specific form of EA that he has, is next surgery will likely be to have tension placed on either ends of his esophagus to encourage growth, then the next surgery will be to attach the ends of the esophagus together. His stay in the NICU could be anywhere from a few weeks to the better part of a year. There are a lot of unknowns - sometimes there are accompanying issues with the trachea that can require other procedures and sometimes there are a whole host of other problems that can accompany EA. We're banking on the easiest and most successful fix. If things turn out otherwise it'll be just as hard as if we had spend time worrying about all that now, so why bother?
I've been very fortunate to have met a couple of moms who have children with this same condition in our hospital's NICU right now. We've also met with the surgeon who'll be taking care of our little guy and, having been tipped off about his condition prior to birth, we've had a lot of opportunity to educate ourselves and come to terms with the whole situation. Oliver is our first (and likely only) child. I've spent a lot of years imagining the perfect pregnancy and exactly how I'd do things when it came to caring for my baby. A lot of that has to be thrown out the window now and, to be honest, it really pissed me off at first. I've gone through a LOT of emotions, actually - jealousy, anger, self-pity - but I think I've settled in a place where I am just happy that his condition is one that can be fixed. I'm still scared, too, but I'm more hopeful than anything else.
Thanks for letting me share!
