#9 Noah's Homecoming, Part 1

As a father, I can remember being handed the scissors to cut the umbilical cord when our first child, Juliana, was born two and a half years ago.   As a young physician in training, I would hand off the scissors to the new dad who was excited to be involved in the delivery process.  Everything was different with Noah's birth on June 9th.  I was escorted to meet my wife who had just received her epidural.  I thought to myself, I've been in this room before.  I can smell my surgical mask and the sterile operating field.  At the front of the room an anesthesiologist looked over his monitors and then greeted me to sit at my wife's shoulder.  Yes, I had been in the operating room before, but not like this. 

As I looked into Jana's piercing green eyes, I could read the emotion and fear but wanted to remain calm and know my place.  When I was in this room before, it would be me along with an attending physician.  I would use surgical retractors and anticipate the next step as the first assistant to the surgeon.  Instead, this time I would peer over the blue sterile drape and see the young resident obstetrician along with a medical student assisting her.  An attending physician was supervising and it was a well orchestrated unit, but I wasn't on the medical team this time.  My focus was on making sure my wife was safe and as comforted as possible.  That's where I needed to be.  My attention switched swiftly as an audible newborn cry was heard.  It was Noah.  He was finally here.  Read more about Noah's arrival: Post #7 NOAH

Noah's tubes, wires and monitors

At one point, Noah had 13 different tubes, wires and monitors attached to his body.  As his chest cavity recovered from the trauma of open heart surgery, he developed a chylothorax, a complication which led to a build up of milky white fluid in his chest cavity.  The protocol was six weeks of skimming the fat off of his breast milk feedings and supplementing the high calories lost from the fat with a formula.  Anyone out there ever tasted baby formula?  My wife is crazy enough to have sampled Noah's particular concoction.  She described it as tasting "like a fermented coffee creamer."  Imagine that not making you want to throw up?  The special feeding, combined with the irritation of having a tube down his nose, has been a huge challenge.  Despite this, he did eventually gain weight and on July 1st was released from C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.    

Noah's first car ride

According to a Facebook poll from families with babies who survive the Norwood open heart procedure (Noah's first of at least 3 surgeries), 50% of families make it home in 5-7 weeks and the other 50% fall into the other 3 options in the poll: 2-3 months, 3-5 months,  6+ months.  We hoped for the best but anticipated the possibly him either not making it out of surgery or being in the hospital all summer.  Amazingly, just three weeks and one day after delivery, we brought our Noah home.  God is good.  



Part 2 of Noah's Homecoming will be posted soon.