Tessa was born with a cyst on her gums and a tag on her tongue. She had surgery on May 4, 2010 to have them removed. Her doctor was Dr.
Hinckley who was awesome! I must admit that I had been dreading this day since she was born but it is nice to have it past us now. We arrived at
EIRMC at 5:45 a.m. Tess could not eat after 1:45 a.m. and her surgery was scheduled for 7:00. That's a long time without food for a baby! This picture was prior to the nurses poking her. The absolute worst part of the whole day was the i.v.! The nurse was very nice and poked her once and couldn't get the i.v. so she called the resource nurse. He was a very nice man who was sweet with Tess. His job is to go around and do i.v.'s for anyone who is having a hard time. We thought he'd be able to get it right away... but NOPE! He tried both hands, her other foot, the crook of her arm and her head. They even used a cool machine called a vein finder to try to locate a vein but obviously didn't have much luck. It was so horrible to watch her being poked over and over. Finally after 5 sticks they decided to send her down to surgery to let anesthesia try to get the i.v. I was bawling in the corner of the room worse than Tess. I'm a big baby! She was so precious. She would cry and look at us like "why are you letting them do this to me?" It was so sad! Both nurses felt awful too. I felt really bad for them!

I got to carry her down to the second floor surgery holding room and she had the same anesthesiologist who did my c-section with her. He is wonderful so I felt like she was in very capable hands at that point. She had fallen asleep in my arms and when I handed her over to the nurse she was still sleeping which made it much easier to deal with! After about 10 minutes in the surgery waiting room a nurse whom we've know for years called us and said that her i.v. went in perfectly when she was under the
gas. They had a PICU nurse come in and do it and it went
very smoothly. Ummmm.... hello? Why couldn't they just do that to begin with? Anyway, the procedure only took about a half hour and within an hour we were back up on the pediatric floor. Tess was an absolute perfect trooper. When she got back to her room I nursed her and she did great. We had to hang out at the hospital for about 5 hours to make sure she was going to tolerate eating well and then we could go home.

She's so sweet that she was actually smiley and happy for a little while after the surgery. The biggest pain was the machines that kept beeping (her i.v. and blood pressure cuffs-annoying)!

The best part of the day was that we HAD to sit and cuddle our baby all day- what a chore :)


She was a sleepy girl most of the day but has acted great ever since. She eats fine, sleeps fine and is mostly her happy little self
. She has had a couple of bouts of fussiness but who can blame her? I'm just so greatful and happy that this all behind us and we don't ever have to worry about it again!