Surgery Day - Day 4

Friday was surgery day.  Alivia had to fast from 4 am until 11:30 when the surgery was supposed to start.  We were a little worried about that because she really didn't like fasting that first day when she had to do it for 4 hours.  I think all the prayers and fasting played a big part in the fact that she was so very calm the whole time we were waiting for the surgical team to come get her.  Both Ryan and I were so calm and at peace all day as well.

We just spent the morning snuggling our baby girl and spending time together. We went for a walk around the hospital and just enjoyed being together.

Finally, they came to get us at 12:30 to take her down to prep her.  We went down and the anestheisiologist explained what he would be doing and then led us down the hall to the doors of the surgical unit.  It was so tough handing her over to him so he could take her the rest of the way in. 

We headed to the waiting room for what was going to be a long 4-5 hours.  Amazingly, the time went really fast.  They would call the waiting room and give us updates every couple hours, which was great.  After our 2nd update, we took a little walk and ended up on the 3rd floor deck.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we were all alone up there.  We sure enjoyed the sunshine and it was just so calming.

We made sure that we were back in the waiting room for the next update.  While we were sitting there waiting, a surgeon came in to visit with another family that was waiting there.  He pulled them into a consultation room that was just down the hall.  A few minutes later, we could just hear the mother sobbing.  It was so heartbreaking to hear that.  About 20 minutes later, we got our call that they were just finishing up, were closing up, and that the surgery went very well.  The surgeon came out after he was finished and talked to us and let us know it was exactly how he suspected it would be and that he felt everything went very well.  We were so happy to hear that.  He then walked us to the PICU waiting room.

While we were in the PICU waiting room, Ryan's parents and our kids got there.  We were pretty excited to see our other 3 kids too.  It has been hard on all of us being apart while this has been happening.  About 6:30, we were finally able to get in to see her.  It was hard to see her hooked up to all the monitors and everything, but she looked really good.  We weren't able to stay long because it was right before shift change, but it was long enough to make us feel really comforted.

After we were able to see her, we went and ended our fast by going to pizza with the kids and Ryan's parents. Afterwards, we headed back up to say good night to our sweet baby girl.  She was very sedated, but while Ryan was in there, she actually would open her eyes a bit when he talked to her.  What a blessing!

Then we had to leave the hospital to go to Aunt Kristine's for the night since we can't stay at the hospital while she's in ICU.  That was hard leaving her there again.  But we both were able to sleep in a real bed and we both slept really well knowing that everything went as good as it possibly could that day.