Spica Cast

A week ago Wednesday we flew home from Idaho. The flight went amazingly well. That morning Natalie had two doctors appointments at two separate hospitals. First she had an ultrasound at which we learned her right hip was still completely dislocated. Next we met with an Orthopaedic Surgeon to check her brace. He decided it wasn't doing any good and instructed me to take it off.

I was really excited and Natalie was really happy to not have to fly in her brace. The Doctor said I could swaddle her for the plane ride home and she ended up sleeping almost the entire trip. She woke up during the layover for a quick change and a feed then went right back to sleep. Her not wearing the brace was such a blessing...of course being taken off the brace also meant surgery in the future.

The doctor asked if I wanted to keep the brace or have them throw it away...I kept it. Should I keep it? I can't decide if it would be something cool to show Natalie when she is older or it is just going to be another thing taking up space. Thoughts? Comments?

On Tuesday we were able to meet with our Orthopaedic Surgeon here in Maryland. He agreed with the doctor in Idaho about the brace needing to come off and proceeding forward with the next step. I wasn't thinking it would be quite so soon but he scheduled Natalie's surgery for the very next day.

I was instructed to wake Natalie up at 3:00am for her last meal because she was not allowed to eat after 3:30, or four hours prior to surgery. After feeding her I started packing bags and lunches because we had to leave to drop Spencer off at a friends house and be in Washington D.C. by 5:45am.

Natalie's surgery wasn't until 7:30am but there was quite a lot of prep work needed before entering the O.R. Here she is before the procedure, we were all pretty tired:

When she was all prepped a handful of doctors came to whisk her off to the OR while Adam and I returned to the waiting room. We weren't allowed to be with her during the procedure but we could follow her progress on a status board in the lobby.

For the procedure they put her to sleep, put a breathing tube down her throat, hooked her up to all sorts of monitors, and taped her eyes shut. Honestly, there is a huge part of me that was relieved I didn't have the option to be there with her because seeing her like that would have been unbearable.

Here is our little rockstar after surgery, she did awesome:

Everything went really smoothly and only took about an hour. Her hip went into socket without the doctor needing to make any incisions. She is now in a spica cast which she'll wear for 6 weeks.

After six weeks she'll get checked and most likely be put in another cast for an additional 6 weeks. She was pretty irritable the first 24 hours-can you blame her? Now that it has been a few days she is more smiley and feeling like her regular self.

How do we change her diaper you ask? There is a little hole by her bum that we can shimmy a very small (newborn size) diaper up and in.

Then we put a Spencer size diaper (number 5) over the top. It was awkward at first but after doing it about 50 times you get the hang of it. It really isn't so bad.

We are so grateful for all your thoughts and prayers. We grateful to the doctors and nurses that took such great care of our little Natalie. And we are grateful her hip is now in place and developing normally. The cast may delay her milestones of rolling over, crawling, and even walking but there is no doubt in my mind that she'll be able to run and play sports and be a very happy and healthy child.