Friday, September 18th Update

Big day for our boy Cooper!
Surgery was scheduled for 7:30 am this morning, so I rolled out of bed at the unholy hour of 5:45 to hop in the shower. Naturally we received a call telling us the surgery had been reschedule to 11:30 after I was already fresh, clean, and fully awake. But who's complaining?
We got to the hospital early enough to be able to spend time with Cooper before they took him down to the OR. Eventually our turn came and we wheeled him down, signed papers of parental consent for the surgery, and then left Cooper in the hands of his doctors.
After that it was a waiting game. The head surgeon told us to expect the procedure to take anywhere from one-and-a-half to two hours. My parents came to keep us company during this time, and we picked up some sandwiches and chocolate milk from the cafeteria. We had still not heard anything, so we went back to the waiting room where we watched way more news on Donald Trump than we ever had interest in viewing.
Finally, two hours and fifteen minutes later, the surgeon walked in to the waiting room to tell us that the surgery was a wonderful success. No complications, no problems, and Cooper was doing well. Very well, actually. All of the nurses were extremely impressed because when a baby comes back from surgery they are almost always intubated and using a ventilator to help them breathe. As the pictures below demonstrate, Cooper does not have a breathing tube in his mouth, and he decided to breathe mostly on his own (still has the nasal cannula). Our resident doctor remarked that she didn't want other parents to see how good Cooper looked after surgery, because most babies don't look as great as he did.
Long and stressful day, but all around good. It will probably take about a week for Cooper to recover from the surgery, but it was a big step forward in getting ready to come home! After he has a bowel movement and is more recovered from surgery we will begin the process of getting him to eat as much as needs to in order to come home. We couldn't be happier with how everything went today.
Cooper is on Tylenol and morphine to help with his pain, and when we left this evening he was sleeping and seemed comfortable.

-Taylor

*Fun fact* The original plan was for Cooper to have the surgery when he hit 2500 grams, or five-and-a-half pounds. They decided to do it a little bit earlier because the surgery would help him grow and it worked better for the surgeon's schedule. Cooper, however, is not one to disappoint. Last night he weighed in at exactly 2500 grams. Atta boy Coop.

Heading down to surgery

Right before surgery, waiting in the OR

After surgery

After surgery

Thank you all so much for your support for us today! I know there were people fasting and many prayers being offered for a successful surgery. I cannot truly express how thankful I am for the faith of so many people in behalf of our son. Prayers bring miracles, and we have witnessed that every single day since Cooper's birth.

-Chloe