Early Wednesday the 30th of May, and I mean early...2:20am Joshua Xavier made his entrance into this world. It all happened so quick that it seemed like we were dreaming. They took him over to the little bed in my room and got the oxygen on him and the wraps with sterile water then the bag on him. Within ten minutes after he was born they had him on his way to the NICU in Magee's and my fiancee, his mother and I all sat there wondering what was going on. We knew that he would be taken to NICU to be prepared for transport to Pittsburgh Children's Hospital, which was only about three or four blocks away. But we didn't think it would all happen so fast.
At around 3:30am they brought our screaming tiny, little baby boy in to see us before they took him by helicopter to his hospital. Joshua weighed in at only 4lbs 4oz and was a whole 17inches long. As soon as I touched his little hand he stopped crying and looked at me. That was the last time we saw him until about 16 hours later. They took Joshua to Children's and got him prepped for surgery.
The doctors were calling to get consent to operate and for blood transfusions and sedation all by 4:30-5am then they called around 8am to let us know that he came out of surgery fine and had a silo in place. They had him on Valium and morphine for about 2- 3 weeks.
During that time Joshua had 4 blood transfusions and lots of IVs and medicines. They shortened his silo a little everyday but one. They slowly weened him off the morphine and Valium and onto Tylenol. We were very lucky, Joshua only needed to be on a vent for a few hours after his two surgeries. By his 2 week birthday, Joshua's bowels were back inside and his poor swollen stomach was closed. His defect was so large that they had to use surgical mesh to help close his little belly.
We were fine with him not having a belly button, so we never asked for them to make him one. We figured that was his scar, his trophy for all his bravery that he showed us from day one.
Joshua stayed in the hospital for a total of six weeks. He did good with the TPN and when they finally introduced oral feedings, he adjusted well. He always tolerated the 5cc's and then daily the 5cc increases.
Joshua showed us how strong he was from day one...on July 12th, 2007 we welcomed Joshua home and introduced him to his big sister Kristin (age 3 at the time). She waited so patiently for him to came home. He was so small though, Kristin thought he was a new baby doll for her, until he woke up.
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