Findlay came into the world on March 1, three weeks early, by C section. My water broke around 3 AM and Euan came home from work and we made our way to the hospital. They pulled him out around 8 AM and the surgeon remarked on his perfectly shaped head and red hair. He was gorgeous, but when the nurses tried to pass a tube down his esophagus it would only go part way down. They instantly took him to the NICU and that was the last I saw of him for what seemed like forever. We later found out that he had type C esophageal atresia with a fistula which meant that his esophagus was not connected to his stomach and instead his stomach was connected to his trachea. Turns out that 1 in 4,000 babies has this but for some reason there is an influx of them in the Sacramento area this Spring, and there happen to have been 5 of them within 3 months. When he was 3 days old he had surgery to disconnect the stomach and the trachea and connect it to the esophagus. The surgery went well and after an excrutiating few days of not being able to hold him, he began his recovery. He was able to go home after 3 weeks in the NICU and finally meet his sisters. Of course, they loved him! He was a great eater and quickly went from his birthweight of 7.7 to 12 pounds by 7 weeks.
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