Immanuel, God With Us - Jude's Surgery details

Many of you know that our little man, Jude Immanuel, is going in tomorrow (Tuesday) morning for surgery at Seattle Children's Hospital.  I know many of you have asked for details and for updates so I'm going to spell it all out but if you don't want to read it all, take away the following:  It is a miracle we found this condition with his kidneys, it is a miracle we live so close to one of the best children's hospitals in the world, we are grateful for your prayers and encouragement and most of all we want you to pray for all the families at SCH over this Christmas season.

The technical name for his surgery is "cystoscopy with transurethral puncture of ureterocele."  You can Google it, I choose not to.  Essentially Jude has a cyst-like blockage on his bladder where his left uterer tube connects from his left kidney to his bladder.  Our doctor, who is really awesome, will go in through a catheter with a tiny camera and a little laser and basically "pop" the cyst and cauterize the area.  That's how I understand it,  still can't get over that they can do this surgery with no incisions, amazing.

So how did they find this cyst?  That's where God's timing gets downright dreamlike.

When I was pregnant with Jude, at our 20 week appointment we went in for a routine ultrasound.  What we, and the ultrasound tech, saw was a healthy baby boy who was growing well and everything looked perfect.  They did notice, however, that my placenta was previa, meaning it was lying too low for me to deliver normally.  My midwife said I would have to go back in to have another ultrasound in 8 weeks and then 6 weeks after that to make sure it had moved enough.    At 28 weeks Jude still looked great but my placenta was still low.  At 34 I went in and my placenta had moved but the tech found something disconcerting with his kidneys. 

She noticed that there was fluid surrounding his left kidney.  When my midwife saw the results and consulted with another doctor they both concluded we needed a more in-depth ultrasound.  In that scan we saw a smiling little boy and definitely a lot of fluid on his left kidney. 

The doctor was very reassuring and told us we would need to have an ultrasound after he was born.   So a few weeks after our beautiful boy was born we headed into the Bellevue Clinic of SCH and had an ultrasound done, which showed the fluid was still there and now there was some swelling on his right.  More doctor calls later (by the way, we have remarkable doctors who really care, our pediatrician called us at 7:30 that night just to let us know what was going on) we had to have a more extensive test done to see if the urine in his bladder was refluxing up into his kidney.  Praise God it was not.

So we met with the pediatric urologist a few weeks later and he told us that surgery was the best option.  He explained that Jude would need to go under general anesthesia and stay overnight so they could monitor his breathing but that the surgery would be quick and rarely ever causes any complications. 

We scheduled the surgery for his first available appointment, December 23rd.  For some people it sounded like a bummer but Noah and I couldn't be more grateful that this surgery will be billed to our insurance in the same year as he was born so our deductibles and such have already been paid.  This is another great big blessing.  So tomorrow morning we head in at 6:45 for his 8 am surgery and will pray for an hour solid that God watches over our little boy, just as He has been since before Jude took his very first breath.  We would love for you to join us in that prayer.

But there is something so much more going on that we would also ask you to pray for.

There are way too many families, for whom spending Christmas at Seattle Children's is just a part of the routine.  There will be families who will be spending their very last Christmas with their beloved child in that hospital.  There will be mothers of brand new babies clinging to life and there will be fathers who pace powerlessly outside emergency surgical rooms.  There will be brothers and sisters who don't know life outside the necessity of hand sanitizer and hospital masks.  There are families who will be saying goodbye for the last time at the moment our son wakes out of his anesthetic fog only to cry in my arms and be comforted by our voices.

So please, pray for our little boy, but more over pray for those families.  Pray for hope, pray for one more day, pray for the release of pain and the miraculous healing of tiny bodies. 

As we waiting in faithful expectation for the light of the world to come crashing into our existence, pray for His light to shine in the midst of  some unimaginable darkness.  Pray that God would open opportunities for us to pray with others whose children won't be able to sit around the Christmas tree with their grandparents like our boys will this Christmas. 

Those children desire your prayers, their parents desire your prayers even if they would never say it.

Jude's middle name is Immanuel - God with us.   This time of year that name comes with a heavenly announcement.  Glad tidings of great joy and the declaration we need not be afraid.  However St. Jude is the patron saint of hospitals and desperate situations.  So we ask that in your faithfulness and glad tidings, you send prayers of light and hope to those in situations much more desperate than ours.

Merry Christmas

Ali, Noah, Soren and Jude