Welcome To America

Saturday, August 18, 2012
I don't know about others, but here where we live we call the surgery for little boys who are adopted and need to be circumcised their "Welcome To America" surgery. I had gone back and forth as to when to schedule Isaiah for his, but after talking to my friend who brought her son home when he was 16 months old and waited until he was almost 2 to have his done, and hearing how it caused him some discomfort when he tried to walk, I decided to go ahead and schedule it as soon as I could, before he starting walking. I'm thankful that my insurance covered it 100% which for anyone who has adopted, you know getting things covered by insurance is sometimes close to impossible, so you can imagine the joy in my face when I found out they covered it completely!!

There is only one doctor in our area that does this type of surgery on pediatrics, so I was thankful that we were able to get in as quickly as we did. Having talked to friends who had gone through the surgery with their kiddos I wasn't too anxious about the surgery itself, I was more anxious about how Isaiah was going to act with the fact that he couldn't have anything besides clear liquids leading up to his surgery, and as I have mentioned before he came home with a little issue regarding food. His surgery wasn't scheduled until 2:00pm, yes I know crazy!!! Thankfully he woke up in a very good mood and was satisfied with his bottle of clear liquids, lol Of course having big brother entertaining him all morning helped a great deal :-) As you can see below he is a huge fan of his big brother!!


God love him, this was his face when we pulled into the parking lot at the hospital!! He was close to losing it, lol and the sad thing is I was in the front seat sneaking a subway sandwich, trying not to make too much noise with the wrapper, Ha!


How cute is this?? When we got to the surgery floor there was a flat screen TV on the wall welcoming the patients who were there for surgery that day.


This was the sweetest thing ever! I looked over in the waiting room where Noah and my nephew were, to see the two of them sitting there, holding hands while Noah prayed for Isaiah's surgery. I love my sweet boy's heart and I especially love how through the Lord's guidance and Grace I have taught Noah that in all times, we should go to the Lord in prayer, especially times of worry or fear. Thank you Lord for helping me in raising my boys with hearts for you!! May they both always seek You in everything they do!!


I forgot to mention when we got to the surgery floor at 1:30pm we were told his surgery had been pushed back 2.5 hours!! Yeah, you should have seen my face!! They offered to let me reschedule it but I didn't see the point seeing as my little guy had already gone most of the day without food, what was 2.5 more hours? With his surgery being pushed out, it gave me 30 minutes to let him drink some watered down apple juice. He couldn't have anything at all 2 hours prior to his surgery, so we had to be quick in giving him some juice in hopes it would hold him over and keep him happy. I have never seen him drink a bottle so fast!!
Thankfully big brother was more then happy to drive Isaiah around the waiting room in one of the little cars the hospital has on hand for the kiddos.


Here we are sitting in the room, waiting for them to come get him. He had already had his "happy juice" and was pretty happy, lol The nurse had told me that with children his age they usually don't give them happy juice, they just take them from the parent and go. I nicely told her that was not acceptable seeing as my son had only been home a little over 2 months at the time of his surgery and I wasn't going to allow them to just take him from me and walk away. I'm glad I stood my ground, because my sweet boy was so out of it by the time they were ready to take him, that he probably would have gone with anybody, Ha!!

Immediately after surgery, they gave him one of the little 2 ounce bottles of sugar water and believe it or not he downed 5 of them in about 7 minutes!! The poor nurse had to literally push another bottle nipple in his mouth before trying to get the empty one out! He was so thirsty/hungry!! He wasn't completely awake, but awake enough to know when the bottle was gone!!

Only adults were supposed to be allowed back in recovery, but Noah was so worried about his little brother and insisting that he needed to be back there with him, that the sweet nurse allowed him back. My mom brought him back there and he was so pitiful. He got up as close as he could and and just stared at him.


He was talking to him and then leaned down to kiss him, so he would know he was there. I am so thankful everyday for the bond these two share.


I realize that is probably way more then ya'll wanted to know about my little guy's Welcome To America surgery, lol but please understand I use this blog to journal everything :-) All in all the entire process went great. I was scared there was going to be stitches, and to my surprise there wasn't. Just some surgical glue, that fell off just like an umbilical cord. His post op visit with the doctor went great and he was very impressed with how well everything went/looked. I am so happy I went ahead and just did and got it done with. Now we move onto the next big thing on my list, legally changing his name!

2 comments

  1. Seeing the pic of Noah and his cousin praying made me lose it! What a precious moment. I'm glad Isaiah did so well :)

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  2. What a sweet brother and cousin. What a wonderful thing to see true love between the boys. :)

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