I have debated posting this on my blog since Joel was born. Ultimately I decided I use this blog to document our family happenings and this is definetly a big happening in our family so I will post it. Hypospadias, baby Joel was born with this birth defect. I think the easiest way to explain what it is will be to copy the paragraph off the info sheet his pediatric urologist gave me.
HYPOSPADIAS: A Correctable Defect
One out of every one hundred and twenty five males are born with a condition known as Hypospadias. The cause for this developmental anomaly is unknown. A boy with Hypospadias has a urethra that does not reach the tip of the penis; that is, the opening of the urethra is on the underside of the penis. It is recommended that Hypospadias be corrected surgically.
I have some animated pics that came on the info sheet I could post but decided against it. If you really want to see what it looks like google it and webmd has some pics. I will warn you though, the pics on webmd are of full grown men with hypospadias. A little more than I personally wanted to see but if that doesn't bother you go for it.
Hypospadias does not hurt Joel. He urinates and has bowel movements just fine. His case is pretty typical it's nothing severe so one surgery should take care of it. So why are we having the surgery done if it doesn't hurt him and he urinates just fine? Because Hypospadias can cause problems as he gets older.
1. His urine stream is irregular, meaning he shoots straight down rather than out of the tip of the penis. He would have to pee sitting down his whole life.
2. His penis would look different than other boys.
3. It could potentially create fertility issues. If he gets the surgery then the opening of the penis would be as close to the cervix as possible so that the sperm is in the right place to cause preganacy.
4. Sexual function. If the penis has chordee (downward curvature of the penis, often found with hypospadias) it becomes very painful, difficult or even impossible to have intercourse as an adult.
I would like Joel to have as much normal function as possible down there so surgery is a no brainer for me.
So now that we are all updated on Hypospadias I'll get to the point of this post. Joel had his first appointment at Primary Childrens Medical Center today. His Pediatric Urologist is a very nice guy! He is super tender and kind. He has great bedside manner which I am sure you need if you are doing surgery on kids all day with crazy, worrying moms all over the place ha ha. He pretty much handles all hypospadias cases in northern Utah. He examined Joel and told us pretty much how the surgery would go.
The surgery is an in and out procedure, so we will go in in the morning and go home that day. They will put Joel under with a mask. Once he is asleep they will start an IV and put in a breathing tube. The surgeon will then construct an addition to the existing urethra and extend the urethra to the tip of the penis. Then he will close the existing hole/urethra at the bottom of the penis and reconstruct the shape so it looks normal and circumcise him. He will use most of the foreskin for the reconstruction.
They will wait till Joel is 4 months old, because they like to wait to do anesthesia on a baby till at least that age, then we will set up the surgery date. We want to have the surgery and recovery done before we move for Optometry school so Joel will have his surgery sooner rather than later. He said the recovery isn't to bad. It will burn to pee for the first week or so then he should act normal and be fine after that. His penis will be black and blue for a while till it heals and the swelling goes down. After all that goes away he should look like any other boy and his function should all be normal! He said the most common complication is if the baby decides it hurts to much to pee and will hold it in as long as possible, then when he finally urinates it will be to much pressure and can burst the stitches. If that happens we would have to wait another 4-6 months and have the surgery done again. So lets pray that doesn't happen!
Joel will have to see the Urologist periodically through his life to make sure no problems occur with growth and development. In almost all cases like Joel's this one surgery should do the trick and everything should be just fine. I feel bad the little guy has to have surgery but after sitting in the waiting room watching kids go by with obviously way worse issues than Joel's we are so grateful it's something fixable and common enough that the doctor feels very comfortable taking care of it! This little guy is growing like a weed and I am sure he will pull through like a champ!
~A
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Family Updates!
This family has been one crazy, busy family lately so I decided to post it all at once instead of several little posts.
First of all our little guy is growing like a weed! At his two week appointment he was already 8 pounds 7 ounces. In 2 weeks he almost gained a full pound! He has also almost grown 2 inches! His newborn clothes that were so big when we brought him home are almost to small. They just grow to fast! He is getting into a good night time routine. He goes down about 10 and gets up at 2 and 6. It's really not a bad schedule for a 2 week old. Sophia is starting to realize he isn't leaving. She asks for baby Joel when she wakes up and she likes to hold him and give him his pacifier. She talks to him like he should understand her and doesn't quite get why he doesn't respond ha ha. Joel loves it when she talks to him and will just stare at her.
Tyler has been super busy with school at BYU and applying to Optometry schools. He has heard back from all 4 schools he applied to and has interviews set up for each. He had his first interview in Tennessee this last weekend. It went great! He had so much fun and was very impressed with the school. To top it off he got an offer to attend school there next year! He has nothing to compare it to right now but after his other interviews we will make a decision of where we want to go. Tyler was super relieved to just know he got into a school, to know his hard work and plans paid off, to know he doesn't need to find a new direction in life. I couldn't be more proud of him! He has worked so hard and every school he wants to go to wants to see him. I am sure we will see a couple more offers before we choose. We could know where we are going as soon as October!
As previously stated we moved the day after I got home from the hospital so that first week home I was crazy busy unpacking and cleaning, trying to get our new apartment to feel normal. Thanks to my mother who cleaned my old place and unpacked a large chunk of my new place, our apartment started to feel normal within the week of us moving in! Then once life started to get into a routine I got knocked down hardcore ha ha. Friday, a week and a half after Joel was born, I got a double breast infection and a UTI. Now before you think I don't clean myself 1 in 3 women get a breast infection or a UTI after having a baby. I was just lucky and got all 3! Saturday morning I could barely function so Tyler took me to the ER. They decided to give me IV therapy. Which means I would get an IV put in and go to the hospital for 3 days to get antibiotics. The nurse stabbed me twice in my right hand and then burst the vein, finally she got it in my left hand. I won't mention what she had to do to check for my UTI, just know it was unpleasant, especially after having just had a baby. To top it all off Tyler left for his interview in Tennessee Sunday. Now 5 days later I am finally starting to feel better. I am super tired a lot but I'll take that over the infections! It's like my body was barely recovering from a major thing like birth then got three infections so now I am starting from scratch again to work up my energy. Thanks in a huge part to my mother in law who took care of my kids the entire weekend. I am sure she was just as exhausted as I was after her weekend with my kids!
I would like to say hopefully life will settle down, but it doesn't look like it will for a bit. Joel has an appointment at primary children's about his surgery on the 27th. (another post to come on that soon, don't worry he isn't sick). Tyler will be gone conference weekend and the weekend after and then again the weekend of the 2nd of November. As long as everyone stays healthy I am fine with it. Having said all that, we are loving life as a family of four and looking forward to our new adventures!
~A
First of all our little guy is growing like a weed! At his two week appointment he was already 8 pounds 7 ounces. In 2 weeks he almost gained a full pound! He has also almost grown 2 inches! His newborn clothes that were so big when we brought him home are almost to small. They just grow to fast! He is getting into a good night time routine. He goes down about 10 and gets up at 2 and 6. It's really not a bad schedule for a 2 week old. Sophia is starting to realize he isn't leaving. She asks for baby Joel when she wakes up and she likes to hold him and give him his pacifier. She talks to him like he should understand her and doesn't quite get why he doesn't respond ha ha. Joel loves it when she talks to him and will just stare at her.
Tyler has been super busy with school at BYU and applying to Optometry schools. He has heard back from all 4 schools he applied to and has interviews set up for each. He had his first interview in Tennessee this last weekend. It went great! He had so much fun and was very impressed with the school. To top it off he got an offer to attend school there next year! He has nothing to compare it to right now but after his other interviews we will make a decision of where we want to go. Tyler was super relieved to just know he got into a school, to know his hard work and plans paid off, to know he doesn't need to find a new direction in life. I couldn't be more proud of him! He has worked so hard and every school he wants to go to wants to see him. I am sure we will see a couple more offers before we choose. We could know where we are going as soon as October!
As previously stated we moved the day after I got home from the hospital so that first week home I was crazy busy unpacking and cleaning, trying to get our new apartment to feel normal. Thanks to my mother who cleaned my old place and unpacked a large chunk of my new place, our apartment started to feel normal within the week of us moving in! Then once life started to get into a routine I got knocked down hardcore ha ha. Friday, a week and a half after Joel was born, I got a double breast infection and a UTI. Now before you think I don't clean myself 1 in 3 women get a breast infection or a UTI after having a baby. I was just lucky and got all 3! Saturday morning I could barely function so Tyler took me to the ER. They decided to give me IV therapy. Which means I would get an IV put in and go to the hospital for 3 days to get antibiotics. The nurse stabbed me twice in my right hand and then burst the vein, finally she got it in my left hand. I won't mention what she had to do to check for my UTI, just know it was unpleasant, especially after having just had a baby. To top it all off Tyler left for his interview in Tennessee Sunday. Now 5 days later I am finally starting to feel better. I am super tired a lot but I'll take that over the infections! It's like my body was barely recovering from a major thing like birth then got three infections so now I am starting from scratch again to work up my energy. Thanks in a huge part to my mother in law who took care of my kids the entire weekend. I am sure she was just as exhausted as I was after her weekend with my kids!
I would like to say hopefully life will settle down, but it doesn't look like it will for a bit. Joel has an appointment at primary children's about his surgery on the 27th. (another post to come on that soon, don't worry he isn't sick). Tyler will be gone conference weekend and the weekend after and then again the weekend of the 2nd of November. As long as everyone stays healthy I am fine with it. Having said all that, we are loving life as a family of four and looking forward to our new adventures!
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Joel Zike Robertson
Warning: This is the story of Joel's birth if you don't like details skip to the bottom where all the pics are! I'll star the paragraphs that have to many details.
Monday night my mom came into town and we went to dinner with Hanna and Eric, Sara and Collin, Leah and Kenzi. It was fun and got my mind off the fact that I was going to have a baby that night or the next morning. Sophia was a bit of a drama queen at dinner I think she knew something was going on. After dinner we dropped Sophia and my mom off at our apartment and Tyler and I headed to the hospital.
We got to the hospital at 8 pm Monday night and the nurse told us we were an hour early. I told her the nurse from Thursday said to get there at 8pm come back at 1am and again at 5am. She told me that we were supposed to come every 6 hours not 4. This would put me back at 3am and my induction at 9am rather than 5am. That still didn't sound pleasant to me. The nurse called my doctor and he decided that I only needed one dose of the cervadil. Which means I would only have to come back at 5am.
*The nurse told me putting the cervadil on would feel a lot like getting your membranes stripped. That didn't sound pleasant but to my surprise she was very gentle and it didn't hurt at all. The only down side was I was not allowed to stand up for an hour. So Tyler and I hung out at the hospital till almost 9:30pm then they sent us home. They told me the cervadil could cause me to go into labor but it is mostly just to help prep my cervix for labor.
Around 11pm I went to bed and could not sleep. Around 2am I started contracting. At 3am I woke up Tyler and told him we needed to head to the hospital. My contractions weren't super painful but they were every 3 min. and I wanted to make sure I got the antibiotics before the baby came. As we were getting ready to go I was super nauseous and that's when I knew for sure it was happening. We got to the hospital around 3:30am and the nurses got me hooked up and started on the antibiotics. They told me to get some rest, that didn't happen.
Around 6:30am my mother showed up at the hospital and they started the actual induction. They gave me the pitocin. The contractions were not bad. They left the pitocin for 2 hours then decided to break my water. I was dialated to a 3. I told the nurse I wanted my epidural right then. I did not want to do one contraction with my water broken without the epidural.
*The doctor told me my cervix had rotated to the side which apparently is normal thing but he had to dig around for my sac of water and that was very unpleasant. Then he had to push on my abdomen really hard to get the fluid to come out. Even more unpleasant.
So the anesthesiologist was helping some other ladies so I had a good 6 hard labor contractions on my own. Then he came in and I thought sweet relief, WRONG. Since my blood pressure was high he made me get a blood test drawn to check my platelet count before he would do the epidural. This took a good 45 minutes, oh man not fun. I finally got my epidural and it gave me the crazy shakes. I am talking seizure like shakes. The weird part was I would shake really hard in between each contraction then during the contraction I was fine. Then my blood pressure dropped dramatically and I got crazy dizzy. They were about to give me some meds but it started coming back up on it's own and was fine the rest of the time. An hour later the nurse came in to check me because I was in a lot of pain, I was dialated to a 7. I could feel the contractions again. I tried pushing the pump but it wasn't working. Literally 30 seconds went by she decided to check me again because of how much pain I was in. I was dialated to a 10. Time to push.
** We discovered that my pump had come out of my back so all the medicine was just squirting on my pillow. Which means I felt every contraction while I pushed. Then he noticed that baby boy was face up which makes it a lot harder to push the baby out. So the doctor just reached up and and twirled him around. I pushed for literally 3-5minutes but it was so much harder than it was with my first. I felt like it was much harder for my body to push through the pain. Then he was out. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice and it was tied in a knot. The doctor said the knot most likely happened earlier on when he was small and that in rare occasions it can tighten and cut off nutrients. He also said it was a good thing I was induced early, with the cord wrapped around hi neck and him being so active, it was good to get him out.
They held him up for me to see and I was instantly in love! He was perfect and I couldn't have asked for anything more. My labor was 4 hours, so it is a good thing we went in early to get the antibiotics. He was 7 pounds 10 ounces and 20 inches long. He was 10 ounces bigger than Sophia and 1/2 an inch longer. We love him and he makes our little family complete!
He has already had his week check up and he has gained all the weight he lost back and is up an ounce. He also grew an inch and a half already. So that puts him at 7 pounds 11 ounces and 21.5 inches long. Sophia was the same way, she grew an inch a week after she was born! My kids are just tall. He also had to have a jaundice test during the week but it came back normal and he didn't need lights. He doesn't look the slightest bit yellow anymore either. At one week he is already sleeping a good 4-5 hour stretch at night which is awesome. He will eat about 1am then again between 6am and 7am then go back to bed till about 10ish. He loves to cuddle on my chest and really only cries when he is hungry or we are changing his bum. He is fabulous!
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Monday night my mom came into town and we went to dinner with Hanna and Eric, Sara and Collin, Leah and Kenzi. It was fun and got my mind off the fact that I was going to have a baby that night or the next morning. Sophia was a bit of a drama queen at dinner I think she knew something was going on. After dinner we dropped Sophia and my mom off at our apartment and Tyler and I headed to the hospital.
We got to the hospital at 8 pm Monday night and the nurse told us we were an hour early. I told her the nurse from Thursday said to get there at 8pm come back at 1am and again at 5am. She told me that we were supposed to come every 6 hours not 4. This would put me back at 3am and my induction at 9am rather than 5am. That still didn't sound pleasant to me. The nurse called my doctor and he decided that I only needed one dose of the cervadil. Which means I would only have to come back at 5am.
*The nurse told me putting the cervadil on would feel a lot like getting your membranes stripped. That didn't sound pleasant but to my surprise she was very gentle and it didn't hurt at all. The only down side was I was not allowed to stand up for an hour. So Tyler and I hung out at the hospital till almost 9:30pm then they sent us home. They told me the cervadil could cause me to go into labor but it is mostly just to help prep my cervix for labor.
Around 11pm I went to bed and could not sleep. Around 2am I started contracting. At 3am I woke up Tyler and told him we needed to head to the hospital. My contractions weren't super painful but they were every 3 min. and I wanted to make sure I got the antibiotics before the baby came. As we were getting ready to go I was super nauseous and that's when I knew for sure it was happening. We got to the hospital around 3:30am and the nurses got me hooked up and started on the antibiotics. They told me to get some rest, that didn't happen.
Around 6:30am my mother showed up at the hospital and they started the actual induction. They gave me the pitocin. The contractions were not bad. They left the pitocin for 2 hours then decided to break my water. I was dialated to a 3. I told the nurse I wanted my epidural right then. I did not want to do one contraction with my water broken without the epidural.
*The doctor told me my cervix had rotated to the side which apparently is normal thing but he had to dig around for my sac of water and that was very unpleasant. Then he had to push on my abdomen really hard to get the fluid to come out. Even more unpleasant.
So the anesthesiologist was helping some other ladies so I had a good 6 hard labor contractions on my own. Then he came in and I thought sweet relief, WRONG. Since my blood pressure was high he made me get a blood test drawn to check my platelet count before he would do the epidural. This took a good 45 minutes, oh man not fun. I finally got my epidural and it gave me the crazy shakes. I am talking seizure like shakes. The weird part was I would shake really hard in between each contraction then during the contraction I was fine. Then my blood pressure dropped dramatically and I got crazy dizzy. They were about to give me some meds but it started coming back up on it's own and was fine the rest of the time. An hour later the nurse came in to check me because I was in a lot of pain, I was dialated to a 7. I could feel the contractions again. I tried pushing the pump but it wasn't working. Literally 30 seconds went by she decided to check me again because of how much pain I was in. I was dialated to a 10. Time to push.
** We discovered that my pump had come out of my back so all the medicine was just squirting on my pillow. Which means I felt every contraction while I pushed. Then he noticed that baby boy was face up which makes it a lot harder to push the baby out. So the doctor just reached up and and twirled him around. I pushed for literally 3-5minutes but it was so much harder than it was with my first. I felt like it was much harder for my body to push through the pain. Then he was out. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice and it was tied in a knot. The doctor said the knot most likely happened earlier on when he was small and that in rare occasions it can tighten and cut off nutrients. He also said it was a good thing I was induced early, with the cord wrapped around hi neck and him being so active, it was good to get him out.
They held him up for me to see and I was instantly in love! He was perfect and I couldn't have asked for anything more. My labor was 4 hours, so it is a good thing we went in early to get the antibiotics. He was 7 pounds 10 ounces and 20 inches long. He was 10 ounces bigger than Sophia and 1/2 an inch longer. We love him and he makes our little family complete!
He has already had his week check up and he has gained all the weight he lost back and is up an ounce. He also grew an inch and a half already. So that puts him at 7 pounds 11 ounces and 21.5 inches long. Sophia was the same way, she grew an inch a week after she was born! My kids are just tall. He also had to have a jaundice test during the week but it came back normal and he didn't need lights. He doesn't look the slightest bit yellow anymore either. At one week he is already sleeping a good 4-5 hour stretch at night which is awesome. He will eat about 1am then again between 6am and 7am then go back to bed till about 10ish. He loves to cuddle on my chest and really only cries when he is hungry or we are changing his bum. He is fabulous!
First day in the hospital.
Going home day.
First bath!
Sophia kissing Joel!
Hanging out with dad.
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So this is a pic of Sophia when she was first born, and below is a pic of Joel. I think they definetly have a resemblance but Joel has features that are different than Sophia, he has dark hair and Sophia had blonde hair and I think he might have dark eyes instead of blue ones. We will have to wait and see.
We moved the day after we got home from the hospital and school started for Tyler the day we had him. Plus this week Tyler is flying out to Tennessee for a interview for Optometry school. So we have been insanely busy but we are doing good and this little boy is doing great! Thanks to everyone for all their help this last week!! We could not have done it on our own!
~A
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