Surgery day & the dreaded spica cast

Aiden had surgery on his hip on Friday morning at Shriners Hospital. Although we have known for almost a year that the surgery would need to be done, we were surprised when we got the call last week that it was scheduled so soon. We packed Aiden up and headed down for a 5:30am appointment. Prior to the surgery we were told that it would take around 2 hours to complete so we kissed him and sent him on his way to take a nice anesthesia induced nap. 4 hours later we were still waiting and of course, worrying. Finally the doctor came out and let us know the surgery was done. She said the process took longer because he was just so small and there was many steps; first they injected a dye to see if there was anything blocking the hip from going into the socket, of course, there was so she had to open him up and remove the tissue that was inside the socket then place the ball of the femur into it, and they also cut a ligament nearby to help loosen the hip and keep it in place. The final step was to put on the dreaded spica cast.

With daddy before the surgery - he looks pretty cute in his little hospital gown

Playing with the toys in the pre-op area before surgery

One last picture of his little legs - we won't see them for a while :(

The dreaded spica cast is blue and starts at his chest and goes to his ankles, with a little hole around the diaper area. Needless to say, he does not like it very much. It will be on for 4-6 weeks and then we will go in to get it removed, they will check his hip and he may possibly have to get another put on for an additional 4-6 weeks if it is still not stable enough. We are hoping we don't have to go through this again. It was hard to see him back in the hospital and we did not have a great experience staying overnight - let's just say it involved a nurse tripping over his IV and pulling it out, a very sleepless night and having to leave him screaming while going down the hall to heat up his bottles - only one of us was allowed to stay with him. We were happy to come home and start getting settled.

Spica bear - this is what his cast looks like, they made this in surgery to match him :)

What it takes to diaper a baby in a spica cast...we are still learning what works and it literally takes us 15 minutes to put together the "diaper contraption"!

Aiden in the dreaded spica cast, he no longer can fit in his car seat, high chair, stroller or saucer - but he finally wears a size 12 month onsie ;)

So, now we are just trying to figure out what to do to keep him entertained, clothed and comfortable sleeping. This whole experience is rough for him and for us, but we figure we will just make the best of it. So for him that means buying the pricey "spica chair", a beanbag chair, a new stroller, toys...whatever it takes to make him happy. For me, that means buying him new cute clothes - he can no longer wear pants, so onsies and BabyLegs leg warmers are my new best friend (he is wearing them above). We will post more pictures of our dreaded spica adventures once Aiden feels a little more like himself and is ready to play!