Hayden was born on Friday April 15 - yes, a tax day baby! He was born at 12:26pm and was 8 pounds 15.6 ounces - which they round up so he's officially a 9 pounder. (Heather was 8, 15.4.) He was 21 inches long.
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Birthday (04/15/2005)
One Month (05/07/2005)
Two Months (06/15/2005)
Three Months (07/16/2005)
Four Months (08/15/2005)
Click here for the full photo gallery. Click here to e-mail the Hudson's. Click here to go to the homepage.
Below are diary entries. Since all is well now, I have reordered them so that the newest is at the top. If you want the history, please start your reading at the bottom of the page.
Crawling better and better - still won't eat solids, but we're working on it.
Hayden began crawling today!
Hayden continues to do well. This week, he's mastering the art of blowing raspberries. He's also reaching and grabbing for things. We had a check up last week and he was 15 pounds, three ounces. I got a bigger tool for dilations and we're to go back in six weeks. Hopefully this will be the last checkup in St. Louis.
The surgery was a success. They had to remove about 20% of Hayden's colon. Two weeks post surgery, he returned for his check up and all was well. We now have some therapy to do at home where we dilate his rectum. It's only once a day, but we'll be doing it for four weeks. Then we'll go back to get a larger instrument and then we'll use that for at least another two weeks. He doesn't like it at all, but I think it's tougher on mom than on him. The good news is that he poops! And he'll be just fine as he gets older. He was 13 pounds, 4 ounces. He's a very good, happy and healthy baby. Yesterday he laughed at me... although I think the first official laugh was at Heather on Friday. It sounded like a laugh, but I couldn't see his face so I wasn't sure. But since he laughed yesterday, I'm sure his first laugh was at big sis.
Keep us in your prayers and I'll try to provide an update when I can. Hugs!
--Steph--
Wow! I never thought we'd make it this far at home with the irrigations. Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. Since leaving the hospital, we've been doing four irrigations (enemas) per day to help Hayden poop. The tube stays in him for a half hour and drains into a diaper. I've done some on the road, but it's not much fun so I stay home quite a bit. Pretty hard to do when you have committments and are trying to build a house. Last Thursday (a week ago), he weighed 11 pounds 7 ounces - so I'm sure he's over 12 pounds by now. Surgery is scheduled for June 28 at St. Louis Children's. The surgeon is Dr. Foglia.
There are now some pics up in the gallery. Be sure to check them out.
After posting this update, later that afternoon, the docs came around. The pathologists confirmed the diagnosis of Hirschsprung's. However, they docs want Hayden to gain weight before having surgery. Therefore, all the tubes were taken out and we were to start feeding him. That was about 7pm Tuesday. Today, Wednesday, we're continuing with the breastfeeding and giving him enemas so that he can have bowel movements. They're going to keep us here for a couple of days to make sure that he's gaining and handling that well. The earliest that we would go home would be Friday.
The surgeon wants him to be close to nine pounds and if he's handling things really well, would really like to see Hayden go up to twice his birth weight. Therefore, surgery to correct the problem may take place in 11 days or so, or may take place in three months. We'll just have to see how he does at gaining weight and if the enemas are relieving him. FYI, this morning, Hayden weighed just 7 pounds 9 ounces. Hope he weighs more tomorrow.