And the neurosurgeon finally shows up...

Our pediatric neurosurgeon is PHENOMENAL, and he's the only one in the Upstate. So when he finished our baby's surgery around 4:30 yesterday, he had 2 emergencies to tend to, and he didn't get done until 10:00 last night. We never heard from him at all and had no clue what the heck was going on with our daughter. His nurse reminded him this morning that he hadn't spoken to us about Emma's surgery, and he said it was the first time in 18 years that he had forgotten to speak to a family. Yep, forgotten. So the odds strike again: (1) having a baby with spina bifida; (2) having a baby born breech (only 3% of babies); and (3) the first family in 18 years' of a surgeon's professional career to have been forgotten. Again...can we just win the lottery, please?

Anyway, he finally came to see us this afternoon around 6 pm after the office visits he had all day. He, of course, apologized profusely and felt so bad. I'm telling you, it's just hard to be mad at this man. After all, he saved our daughter's life yesterday. Oh, and he's a genius. The good news is, when Emma arrived, she didn't greet him with any surprises. The lesion on her back is low, and she will likely have some bowel and bladder function issues, as well as some ankle function problems. He can't guarantee this is all it will amount to, but in the grand scheme of spina bifida, this is pretty good news. Of course, we would love for our daughter to not have to deal with any of that, and that is what we will CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR! We were surprised that the incision on her back is so large because he's VERY concerned about little girls having pretty (aka - really small) scars. However, Emma's is in the shape of a Y, with each piece of the Y at about 2 inches - pretty big on her tiny little back and hiney. It turns out, though, that when she was born, there was very little skin covering the area AROUND the lesion, so he had very little skin to pull together. The spinal cord itself was easy for him to work with, but she just didn't grow very much skin on top of and around it. Here's crazy odd number 4: the area needing covering was in the perfect shape of a heart, something he had never seen before. He had to use a lot more skin around a pretty small spinal problem to get it covered. So even when she gets married, she will never forget the Young name! And if she ever wants a tattoo, we can tell her that she's already got one. We ended up talking to him for about an hour and a half.

I have still been in a lot of pain today, and they can't quite manage it like I had thought they'd be able to. It has been a very busy day with lots of visitors, and I didn't get down to the NICU until 2:00 this afternoon. The NICU folks are having trouble getting a central PICC line in Emma, which is a longer-lasting alternative to an IV. She needs it for fluids and painkillers, but they're also giving her a ridiculously small amount of formula through her nose - they can't let her intestines get lazy, basically. She has a ventilator tube in to help her breathe since painkillers slow down breathing, but they will probably take it out tomorrow - her breathing is above average for kids in the NICU recovering from surgery. In the meantime, she is enjoying sucking on the ventilator tube and making cute little noises. We can see her little tongue moving a lot when they have her head turned on one certain side.

We tried to pick a picture for today that is good for the faint of heart - not too much incision or ventilator tube. In this picture, you can kind of see the wound on her back, but it's not too bad. The red glowing light is some kind of oxygen sensor. This is also one of only 3 times we've seen her with her eyes open, and Daddy was lucky enough to be there with a camera!