Periodontal Surgery: Not fun

NOTE: no pictures on this one. You're welcome.

So, after a year of being really mad at my dental insurance, trying to figure out a flexible spending account, and generally dragging my feet (my excuse? A rough pregnancy and a French Fry!), I finally got the periodontal surgery that I needed. I would like to take this moment to thank the genetic c0cktail that sent my grandmother, mother and father for the same surgery.

Worst part? The 4 hours of cutting, scraping, and sewing? Nope. The novocaine. Almost passed out. Had to request a pre-sedative (pre-sedative?). Which they had to send someone (in their car) to go get while I was in the chair. Or maybe they called Cafe Courier. I was a bit busy at the time.

It was very strange listening my tunes (thank you thank you iPhone!) while they were doing their work. I started with an audiobook, but I couldn't concentrate on it. I switched to Medeski, Martin, and Wood, then finished with Beirut. Very very cool. I great way to dissociate myself what was going on, but still able to listen for instructions.

Craziest part? They numbed me up so much that my nose went numb. It (and my mouth) is finally past that, and I'm on serious pain medication. But doing fine.

The Story of Emerson James Rayo

If I wait any longer to pen this, I'll forget the good parts ...

We had been circling April 17th, French Fry's due date.  We were a bit bummed that Bryan, Sarah, and Annalia wouldn't be able to see him on his first weekend, because of Bryan's business trip to the great state of Alabama (they're hiring, by the way, if you're a GIS dude and can convince Bryan to quit). However, they would be down the weekend before (Easter weekend!), and we were planning on sucking the marrow out of the weekend.

We were getting ready for our Easter festivities, the Michigan Rayos had just arrived, and we had an impromptu toddler dance party, replete with a dancing chicken (playing, of course, the Chicken Dance).  It was a blast, and we turned in late but knew that we would be waking early to get the kids ready for the Duckling Day Parade, an annual Easter Tradition.

Instead, we woke to contractions.  Big ones. At 4:00 AM.  At 6:00 AM, we woke up Henry and told him that we would be going to the hospital soon. As I went down to give Bryan and Sarah the news, Henry rode out three or four contractions with Mommy.  She squeezed his arm to get through them.  Henry soldiered through it, didn't ask any questions, and they watched cartoons together.

Once arriving at the hospital, the labor and delivery went quickly, and were as uneventful as a "normal" birth could be.  Sarah pushed for about 30 minutes after about 4 hours in the hospital.

The fun started when we realized that he had fluid in his lungs that he couldn't aspirate.  His lips would turn blue when they removed the oxygen mask.  Fun, huh? They whisked him off to the NICU, got him hooked up to CPAP and an IV, and we rode it out. 

As emotional as it was, I fully realized that he wasn't in any serious danger ... we just wouldn't get to hold him or have him as quickly, and that meant that WE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO NAME HIM.  We had fully expected to shoo everyone away for about an hour, take a long look at him, and figure out who he was.  That would not come to pass, because we went right from the NICU to his car seat to go home, and the hospital gets cranky about not naming your baby before you skedaddle out of there. So, in between the 35 visits between the NICU and Sarah's room, visiting with family, getting everything ready, and (oh yeah) sleeping, we did get some time and came to a decision about his name.

Emerson James Rayo. The feisty SOB that would be doing everything his way, thank you very much.

We got home without a hitch, and we're not really sleeping very well.  And it's wonderful.