Upcoming Surgery

We received the date for C's eye surgery last week.
OK, so surgery is not strictly the correct word.  I think the correct term in "procedure".
She is going to undergo a procedure to unblock her tear ducts which have been blocked in both eyes since she has been born.
The result is her tears cannot drain away properly, which leaves her eyes either constantly weeping or crusted up.
Not only is this unattractive, it is obviously uncomfortable and leaves her prone to conjunctivitis.
The procedure needs to be carried out under general anaesthetic and involves sticking a probe through the tear duct and into the nasal cavity to push through any blockage, and then stretching the duct to allow it to drain easier.

32 Weeks Pregnant - Packing My Hospital Bag

Another week has gone by.
Right from the beginning of this pregnancy I said I would pack my hospital bag at 32 weeks.
Here I am!

I didn't get to pack my hospital bag with C.... I'm not sure running round the house grabbing a few essentials before a mad dash to the hospital really counts.
For a first baby which are "always late", I thought 36 weeks would be plenty early enough... of course it was not.
This time I was determind to be more prepared!

A Very Late Early Birth Story

Watching someone give birth on television last night made me realise that I never actually blogged C's birth story. Although 15 months ago, I feel writing it down now might help me focus what to put in my birth plan this pregnancy.

I am sure many of you saw my tweets during labour last year and therefore are familiar with how the situation unravelled however hopefully this will piece it all together and fill in any blanks.

Inguinal Hernia Surgery

As mentioned previously, C had a large lump on her groin that kept coming and going.  I suspected it was probably a hernia. In January we took her to see our GP and although the lump was not visible for the Dr to examine, the photo I had managed to take a few days before was convincing enough for him to refer us to a Consultant Paediatrician at our local hospital. Unfortunately he was spread across all the hospitals in our region and only available in our local hospital once a month. We were therefore warned that it may be a couple of months until we got to see him. 

We eventually received an appointment date of 22^nd March.  In the meantime I was noticing C’s suspected hernia more and more frequently. In seemed most visible in early afternoon after a bowel movement however didn’t appear to be causing her any distress.  

A couple of weeks ago, a week after her 1st birthday, C was being grumpier than normal.  This soon deteriorated into howls of pain.  Nothing I could do would soothe her, it was quite distressing.  I should stress again that at no point until now had her hernia caused her any noticeable distress, therefore it was just a passing thought to check her groin at this point. I was shocked to see a lump swollen to the size of a golf ball and rock solid.  I ran into DH’s room where he was on a conference call and gesticulated wildly at him. After making his excuses to his colleagues and taking one look at C, we are in the car on the way to A&E.