When the nurse told me the morning before that they had both been circumcised, a cloud of concern engulfed me. We had planned to get them circumcised before they left the hospital but I had wanted to be there for the procedure. The Neonatologist assured be that the procedure was simple and the boys were doing fine.
Comforted by her words I carried on planning for their homecoming. In no way was I ready to face what would soon happen.
We got Ryad home at 7:00 later that evening. We rushed him back to the hospital aroundng 11:00 pm that same night. When at home he had refused to eat (that's a big alarm when it comes to newborns) and looked very pale. He hadn't wet his daiper either. At that time we assumed that it was becuase he didn't feed well, it was only later that we would find out why.
He didn't move or respond when we tried playing with him. Although no one expects a week old baby to giggle back when tickled, in Ryad's case he would be almost statuesque. He just wasn't the same fiesty baby we had seen earlier. There was something amiss in his personality.
The Doc was more surprized than concerned to see us back. She had it all figured out in her mind the moment she saw us walking through the door; new parents, over-read, over-concerened, over-reacting. But at our insistence they readmitted him. It felt like walking backwards when you should been moving ahead. Putting the h wrist hospital bands back on after we had finally cut them earlier that evening, Ryad going back into the isolette, his temprature check, his weigth check, his re-examination, all seemed to have happened in a haze.
In the wee hours of the morning we got news that the doctors had finally figured out what was wrong. Apparently, Ryad had excessive bleeding during his circumsicion (we weren't informed about that). They used sutures to stop the bleeding and the Dr performing the procedure accidently inserted a suture in the uretheral track. This made him incapable of passing urine.
Can you imagine? The poor little guy went 2 days without peeing! No wonder he was so pale.
Reston Hospital realized the case was beyond their reach. Ryad was transferred to Children's Hospital located in Washington DC.
A helicopter crew made their way into the NICU to take him away. They unhooked him from all the machines took him out of the warm incubator and put him in theirs (a portable one, I have'nt seen those anywhere else) before securing his ears with cutest little infant ear plugs.
We made our way by road, it was a 40 minute drive and we caught the worst part of the morning traffic. We had barely parked our car when the Neonatologist called us saying that they were about to perform a procedure to attach a super pubic catheder onto Ryad's abdomen (a super duper what??) Neither me nor my husband had any idea what that was but by the time we made our way to the NICU the procedure had been done with and Ryad was in the recovery section. Mind you, it took us over 35 minutes to reach the NICU from the parking.
Children's in DC is huge huge huge.
The first thing I noticed when I saw Ryad there was how much better he looked. Turned out that what the Urological Surgeon did was make an incision right over his swollen bladder and sucked out the accumulation (which was lot even according to him) then connected his bladder with a thin tube that went all the way into daiper. From over the skin it looked like a tube protruded out of his lower abdomen. So basically he peed through that tube instead of his usual track. How long would he have to stay like this? Was my main concern. Until the suture blocking the Urethra disolved on its own.
Ryad was discharged after 3 days in the hospital and we kept him in double daipers (one for his pee tube and one for his stool) for the next 1 month.
He was a strong little baby to go through so much in his first week of life and we love him for that (and more:))!
Ryad at Children's Hospital NICU, Washington DC
More needles, probes and monitors
My brave little Man!!
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