For anyone who missed it - I had a baby. I don't think I posted here, but who knows - I wasn't very with it!

His name is William, born 1st December 2016!

Excellent stuff. :) He's a cute little dude.

I'm guessing from the lack of medical updates all is well now?

I seriously didn't envy you one bit during all those operations. So glad he's doing well.

Yes mate - was a bit.....fraught, to say the least. Could talk for hours about the whole thing as it was a very strange thing to experience.

His next surgery will be next year sometime - depending on how his blood oxygen levels are. For the moment they're very good, but that's because the artificial conduit is technically oversized - as he grows it'll become undersized. 

Next one's a biggie, though - replacement conduit, artificial valve and repair the hole with a bit of luck. Mrs spends a lot of time at the hospital at the moment, but it's all routine - they just keep a very close eye on him for the moment. 

AWWW, HE'S WONDERFUL! SO CUTE!

CONGRATULATIONS!

((((((((BIG-SQUISHY-GRANDMA-HUGS))))))))))

He looks happy, I'm honestly relieved it's all OK so far. Can't believe a fair few of us had babies in the last few years - I mean, who would've thought we'd find people to sleep with us?  :-O~~~  (angel)

Yay!

It's amazing what you guys had to go through (that it was even possible to go through that, I doubt even our parents generation would have much hope in those circumstances), so good to see nice smiley pictures.

Yay science achieving good shit!

Thank you - he is :D Thanks mate - I know, it's weird to be here. Kind of what prompted my rollcall thread a little bit - strange to think we've known each other for so so long now. Lots of huge milestones!

I know, I've been absolutely stunned by what they do and how they do it. Some of it makes my toes curl a little bit (Like knowing that his heart was stopped for over an hour), but the technology and skill is incredible. When the surgeon was describing what they were going to do I was thinking "Fuck me - I've screwed up making a brew before now"

Would you have preferred they told you the intricacies of the procedure after it was done?

 

A lot of it did come after, to be fair. They're pretty good at telling you just enough that you feel like you "know" and getting you prepared because, ultimately, the reality is that open heart surgery comes with some big risks. But, at the same time, they're well versed in how they act and talk.

A lot of just how poorly he'd been and how complex the operation was didn't really get exposed until we started getting CC'd letters to the doctor and our local hospitals etc. The bleed in ICU was another example of that - they called us as soon as his blood pressure dropped and they were starting emergency surgery by the time we got there (Which was all of 5 minutes) but the liaison nurse did a very good job of calming us down and talking us through the surgery (We didn't see anything for obvious reasons, but she was able to peek through the screens and update us).

Then, when it's all over, you play it down and feel silly for panicking so much - until, again, you start to get the letters with phrases like "Emergency exploration after critically low cardiac output observed". Before that, every time we met a new person in outpatients they'd read his file and say "Ooh, he was very poorly in ICU wasn't he, bless him" and we're sat their thinking "Uh, I dunno - we kind of thought it was all under control!".

But, yeah, by that time you're home and dry so it has less of an impact. And, let's fact, what the fuck was I gonna do even if they do turn around and tell us we're in the shit. At that point you're very much in their hands.

Can't really fully comprehend it Dan, followed your posts on Facebook with trepidation at the time. It's all a bit incredible. awesome in the old-fashioned sense of the word.


My boy was three in December. It's pretty wild being a parent. I get ups and downs on whether I'm any good at it but I think mostly ups.

This is him wearing my hoodie sometime last year.

 

This isn't working very well on an iPad. Ah well, it's just a toddler, they're all more or less the same innit. 

You missed your pic :(

And three! Mental! I can't wait for him to start "getting into things" and being a bit more interactive, although I'm sure I'll regret saying that soon enough

Ours now claps and gets excited when she hears the Star Trek theme. I am unnaturally happy about that.  :'-D 

(I may have said this already on a previous occasion.. a side-effect of being a parent is that your memory.. what was I talking about?)

Such an adorable baby, May he has a bright and fruitful future. God Bless you

Yeah I couldn't get upload to work on here from my iPad, and I wasn't getting off that sofa for anything.

Here's a link to a different more recent one anyway: https://goo.gl/photos/Xw7cYCCZSZVDqesR7

It does generally get more fun but indeed more effort, once they're mobile very little is safe. And once they can express free will and demand their own way, argh.

Clinging on to that hair!

"I wasn't getting off that sofa for anything"

Wow. That deserves a Forum Award.

it's not good from that angle is it. I actually asked the barber to shave it last weekend and they refused. Dunno what to do now!