we'll get there, eventually.

I think I'm running on 2 hours of sleep in two days. Why? Because I have been anxiously waiting to find out if surgery is in Sawyer's near future. AND>>it's not. His surgeon is a very thorough man, and he felt that even though he is ready for surgery, he wants to wait another 4 weeks. Because once you go in and try to fix it, you can't go back, so he HAS to be 100% ready.

But then they brought up the idea of sending him home with us for 4 weeks, and bring him back for the surgery. I was all for that! I would love to go home with my precious baby.  A bit premature? Yes. All I knew was it's what I wanted to do, and I know I could take care of him. I'm sooo done with the hospital scene. I'm ready to lounge around in my pj's and belt out songs and watch Mad Men reruns on Netflix and do the things you do with a baby in the solitude of your own home. The staff pep-talked me and said they'd get stuff together to send us home.

And then it hit. Early this morning at 2 am, somewhere between a mug of sleepy time herbal tea and a trip to the potty-- I'm not ready to take him home. Such a huge responsibility that I'm not sure I'm ready for. So I called the NICU and told them he needs to stay. He is where he needs to be, however long it takes, even though everyone has complete confidence that it would work. 

By some sweet mercy, the surgeon called me this morning. The first words out of his mouth were "Let's not send him home. I've been thinking about it all night and he needs to stay in the hospital."

We don't know why exactly, but Sawyer is going to stay here, with the nurses who know and LOVE him and will watch his suction thingy diligently. We must have angels watching over us.

April update

So Sawyer had a scope test on Monday to measure the distance between the ends of his upper and lower esophagus. They are approximately 1 cm apart, so surgeons are starting to talk about repair. Sawyer's surgeon is a genius (and won Doctor of the Year this year), so I'm really confident that he'll do his very best with Sawyer's case. Instead of repairing him conventionally, the surgery team wants to fix him with magnets! Imagine that. With one magnet in the upper pouch and one in the lower pouch, the magnets with bring the two together, and over time will force the tissue to meld together. Brilliant! Never heard of it in my life, but it's been done in Japan to fix intestinal and anal atresia. It will be the first case at Primary Children's, so we're all kind of anxious, hoping it really works. So, to illustrate better, this is a normal esophagus

 

And Sawyer has an esophagus like this

 After 3 months of waiting and growing, the two ends are finally almost touching. Surgery is on the schedule for next week sometime. It takes about 3-4 weeks to completely connect on its own. Until then.....we'll just keep busy being the cool kids in the NICU.