The Recovery (Part 2)

Saturday, May 19th, 3 days after her surgery they told us they were planning on closing her chest. We were at the hospital in the late morning early afternoon and they told us they would close it around 1:00pm. They don't take her down to the operating room, they bring the operating room to her. So they bring the surgeons up and make her room a sterile environment and block everything off so that they can close the chest. Amy was our nurse that day, we loved her. She was the only nurse that we had for 3 days in a row. This day was our first day with her. She said that it would take about an hour to sew her up, and then the surgery teams leaves and leaves everything for her to clean up by herself. So she said she would call us when it was all cleaned up and we could come back to see her.

She was still heavily sedated and had morphine running through her with her chest still opened, but they up all the medications a little when they close her chest. I can't even imagine how painful and uncomfortable that would be. Blah...poor thing.

These pictures are that morning before her chest was closed. This day they put a pink bow in her hair. :)

We couldn't be there while they closed the chest. Even if they would let us be there I sure wouldn't want to be. That would be a horrendous sight. I can't imagine watching your baby's chest being sewed up. I'm sure Chris and his parents would have loved to see it. They were all fascinated by the opened chest. I still can't believe they could look at it! It was so disturbing to me. I think it would be disturbing no matter who it was, but it was my sweet little baby. I asked Chris why it was that he couldn't watch a video of some random women and her C-section delivery, but he could look at HIS baby's open chest. He never had a good answer.

While she was getting her chest sewed up we went and did our laundry. I think we were on our last set of underwear, and running out of clean clothes. We packed up all our dirty clothes into 3 bags and headed for the laundromat. I have never been to a laundromat. Closest I every got was in the dorms in Hawaii. That was one thing I demanded when we first got married, living in a place with washer/dryer hookups, and buying a washer and dryer. I was bad enough with doing laundry to begin with, if I had to do it at a laundromat we would be wearing dirty clothes. Anyways, so I was nervous about going and doing our laundry. I know I'm totally weird. I have a weird thing with other peoples dirt, my own dirtiness is fine...but other people....eek. Anyway it was fine. The owners could have swept up the place at least once a day...but I guess they didn't feel the need. And holy cow was washing and drying 3 loads of laundry expensive! Seems like it would be a cost saver in the long run just to buy a washer and dryer!

By the time we were done we got the call that Aili was all sewed up, cleaned up and ready for visitors again, so we headed back over to the hospital. She looked so much better sewed up! I just felt way better about the whole thing, knowing her chest was closed now. I felt like finally we could move along with the recovery. I felt like it was kind of at a stand still with her chest still opened.

All closed up!

After Chris's parents saw Aili with her chest all closed up they had to get in the car and head back home. It was so nice having them there, and so nice that they drove all the way out to be with us. That night we got together with Liberty, David and West in downtown Palo Alto for some food and Pizza My Heart and ice cream and chit chat afterward. We caught them up with how the surgery went and how Aili was doing. We all felt kind of weird being together without Aili. Without her there was just something missing...ya my child.