A Christmas to Remember

Like most stories, let's start at the beginning.....

We had known for about two weeks before christmas came that Titus had a hernia located close to his hip flexor. Multiple people we talked to had told us that it was nothing to worry about as long as it wasn't hurting him. Ok great, I thought, no big deal, we have an appointment in January to see a surgeon to figure out the best game plan in taking care of that. Well, once again, Titus has a thing for proving me wrong ;)

My sister and brother-in-law were coming in for christmas friday night after they got off work. Titus had been having a few issues that day and didn't eat great at 4 but no biggie right? WRONG! I sat down to feed him right before heading over to mom's house to hang out with everybody and he wouldn't latch at all, all he did was scream. He would cry until he was too tired to cry anymore and then fall asleep until he was just rested enough to scream again, and thus how the circle continued. Long story short after saying hi to my sis, we headed to the children's ER. We were there for a long time and after ultrasounds, attempts to push the hernia back in, multiple attempts to give Titus an IV (which was probably the worst part!), and nothing working, they needed to transfer us to the downtown children's hospital. Thus, a ride in an ambulance.

He was too small to really be strapped onto the stretcher so he was strapped into his car seat that was then strapped down. :)

We got to the ER downtown and saw two different surgeons that both tried to push the hernia back in. The second managed to get it back in but knew that he was going to need surgery eventually, and when I say eventually, I mean soon, as in maybe christmas day. Fun! But we needed to wait for the swelling to go down from all the pushing so we would have to wait it out so we need to get him admitted to the hospital and see what happens. So Titus still isn't doing great because it has now been 20 hours and he hasn't eaten anything and he's still asleep in the crib. The senior surgeon came to see him and we discuss all the options and come up with a couple different plans depending on if he will eat and if he throws up after it or not. We had almost gotten the clearance to go home when he starts throwing up. At first it's just spit up but then turns into stomach acid so we have to stay another night.....which of course turns out to be christmas eve. Not exactly the way I was planning on spending the first christmas eve that we have had our own house and our own family without a service to attend or a car ride for 12 hours or a plane to catch at 4 in the morning but I know it could be worse so I attempt to come up with a plan to salvage Santa in Gavin's mind and something of a christmas time with our little family. My family, except Joshua because he did have services to be at, all came up to the hospital to hang out. While they were there, Titus took a huge turn for the better. 

WARNING: Possible TMI

As my sister was holding him he finally pooped for the first time in 96 hours or something! I have NEVER been more excited about a dirty diaper. He had a couple very large ones actually within those first couple of hours and started acting much more like himself! All he could have was pedialyte until they cleared him in the morning. So we did the best we could trying to get him to wait. The pedialyte did help a little.

Much happier baby!

They came by at 6 and said I could try and feed him again and if he kept it down then we could go home. After he got to eat real food he was much happier.

He didn't throw it up so we were cleared to go home at 9am with instructions to be back the next morning at 6am for surgery. Well at least we kinda get to have some sort of a christmas morning. So we got him dressed and headed home.

While everybody was at church I got our house ready for christmas morning and then headed over to mom's for lunch and to have christmas there.

Gavin got these pi's from my parents and wanted to put them on. He's going to love this picture one day. hehe. :)

My parents gave Gavin and Titus a huge swing set and wrapped the slide for "them" to unwrap.

After all that and while dinner was being prepared, we ran home to have our family christmas. My plan has always been to collect nativity scenes and have them all over the house without the baby Jesus' in them. In hopes that as the years go on the first exciting thing that happens on christmas morning is talking about Jesus and running around putting all the baby Jesus' in the mangers. Gavin was excited about it this year. When we put them out at first he asked about the baby on his own which was fun for me and so we got to talk about that well it wasn't his "birthday" yet so he can't come out yet. It was really fun still getting to do that and I hope it only grows more special as the years go on.

This is just one of the scenes where Gavin put the baby in the manger.

Gavin really wanted this penguin robot thing even though he doesn't understand what all it really does. I guess it will be a present that grows more fun every year!

Titus looking at his present from Santa.

The boys also got presents for each other this year. This is what Titus got Gavin. Of course it wasn't really that big of deal for Titus but I wanted Gavin to think about what to get for Titus so Titus needed to get Gavin a present as well. :)

It wasn't what I had imagined in my head after all these years of dreaming about it but it was still really fun and special and I will definitely remember this christmas for the rest of my life!