The Surgery

One last picture of her chest without the big scar. You can barely see her scar from the hernia repair. Hopefully her heart repair scar will be this light soon.

In the car on the way to Dallas. She loved getting to play with her brothers.

In Ronald McDonald House before our long day of tests Monday. She just discovered her feet a couple weeks ago.

She wanted so badly to grad her feet while she was getting her blood drawn on Monday. We had to hold her arms down though so the tech could get a good draw. No problem for this baby, she just brought her feet to her hand.
We arrived at admissions at 5:20 am, got registered shortly after 5:30 am, and were taken back to pre-op by 6:30. The anesthesiologist took a little longer to get ready than they anticipated and our 7:30 start time got a little delayed.

In Pre-op just before they took her back. Just as happy as ever!

Caroline fell asleep in my arms (after playing sweetly in my lap) as we waited for her to get taken back. Because she was asleep, they allowed me to carry her back to the Operating Room (or as close to it as a parent can get). What a horrible feeling it was to let her go . . . sleeping peacefully, without a care in the world.

We were told that the surgery would take 4 to 5 hours.

We got a call around 9 (I think - all running together now!) saying that all preop was done and the doctor was ready to begin. We got a call around 10:00 that she successfully went on bypass at 9:53 and the surgeon had started to repair the hole in her heart. We got the last call at 11:15 saying the surgery was complete and the surgeon was coming to talk to us. Beginning to end - less than three hours. Yet again, our expectations are exceeded!

We were able to see Caroline as she was carted from the OR to her recovery room just for a brief second. It took about an hour and a half to get her settled in her room.

A sight I am way too familiar with

They thought she might need nitric oxide to keep her oxygenation levels up but she didn't. They told us that she would be sedated and intubated for 24 hours. The plan is to extubate her in about an hour - she has been breathing on her own for an hour now.

If the extubation goes well, we should be able to start feeding her sometime tonight. If she continues to do as well as she is now, she should get most of her IVs out within the next day and will be moved off of the Cardiac ICU. Please pray that she continues to do well.

What a miracle this little baby is.