Surgical update and other odds and ends...

As some of you may (or may not) know, when Benjamin was born, neither of his testicles had descended. So back in April, he had surgery to bring the left one down. By all accounts, this one was successful.

Fast forward to this week. Thursday, Ben was scheduled to have surgery to bring down the right testicle. The thing was, we (well his urologist) wasn't sure where the testicle would be. Back in June, he had an ultrasound and they couldn't locate it. She's never been 100% sure that she could feel it anywhere in his groin. So it was basically going to be a fishing expedition! One of four things could happen: she could find it and move it down into the scrotum, she could find it and move it partway down and then move it all the way down at a later date (to give the blood supply time to grow and stretch), she could find a small testicle that wouldn't be worth moving (she'd take it out), or she wouldn't find one at all and Ben would have to have a laproscopic procedure later to try to locate it. It is very important to find it though, as his doctor needs to be able to check it (i.e. for cancer when he's older). Whether it stays in or is taken out, we needed to know where the heck it was.

On Thursday, our little boy was a real trooper. He wasn't really scared at all. I, on the other hand, was so anxious! I couldn't stop thinking about him being in pain, or scared, or both. The urologist was in and out in about an hour - she found a good-sized testicle in his groin! Gord and I were very pleasantly surprised - we had resigned ourselves to the thought that IF they found one, they'd just take it out; we didn't think that it would be a good testicle. I could tell that the doctor was also pleasantly surprised. She did say that the blood supply is under a bit of tension, but she didn't seem to be preparing us for the worst or anything. All in all, it was a successful day! Ben did take longer to come out from under the anesthetic, and we had to wait until he drank and peed and could walk around before we could come home, which took longer too. But we are relieved and happy that he won't have to go through this again.

The ultrasound for baby #2 is tomorrow...I can't wait to see him/her bouncing around! S/he is very active, giving me the ol' one-two every couple of hours, just to remind me that s/he is in there! Like I would forget!

We are r-e-a-d-y for Christmas! Gord is very excited to hang out with the family and enjoy some quality time together...and I agree! Our shopping is pretty much done and everything that we have is wrapped. I haven't put everything under the tree yet...we're not sure how well Ben will understand that not every present under the tree is for him and is therefore free game. We'll see...we're still working on tree issues...

I'm going to post a few cute pictures too...

Carrie