We want to thank everyone for the amazing support and prayers. We are having lots of firsts this weeks and blogging is one of those. Benjamin Everett Grant was born on Thursday at 4:48 p.m. and weighed 6 pounds 15 oz. He is 20.5" long and at first glance looks as healthy as can be. Like a little beach baby with amazing white blond hair and tan little skin. He also has two little dimples that are so precious and of coarse we fell in love with him the second he entered our hands. A few minutes after delivery Benjamin started choking and the nurses at Brookwood suctioned him for a very long time and removed a large amount of mucus from his lungs. When they tried to remove any mucus from his stomach that may have been swallowed during the delivery they started to see that the problem was a bigger one than first thought. The OG tube put into Benjamin would only go down about 14cm and stop completely short of his stomach. After being rushed to the Brookwood NICU and being seen by the Neo-natalogist Dr. Stong she decided to transport him to Children's just hours after he was born. We had some great moments with him before he left and Barrett even got to sit next to him and kiss his head (and become quickly obsessed with his baby brother).

After Benjamin arrived at Children's NICU they were able to a battery of tests to find out exactly what was wrong with him. For an accurate description that will clearly explain the issue you can go to www.aafp.org (American Family Physician)and enter Esophageal Atresia and Tracheoesophageal Fistula to get the complete medical description of the issue. In plain, in the womb at about 18 weeks Benjamin's esophagus did not form between his throat and his stomach and the part that was connected to his stomach was connect to his trachea tube. So to be able to ever eat he had to have the esophagus reconstructed so that the two pieces of the puzzle are put back together and the small tube that was attached to his trachea had to be removed and sealed to make sure nothing from the stomach would get into his lungs. Both of these things needed to be done immediately.

So within 24 hours of birth Baby Benjamin had taken a ride in an ambulance, changed hospitals, had more nurses and doctors than I think any human should have and had every possible scan and ultrasound done on his little body imaginable. We are so thankful that they were able to get him into Surgery on the Friday after his birth at around 4:45 and the surgery lasted about 2.5 hours and was very successful. Dr. Barnhardt and the other surgeons at Children's were amazing and from what they saw this really was the best of what can be a really bad situation.

Dr. B removed the part between his stomach and and trachea and attached it where it should have been developed. He then repaired everything and considered the surgery a success. Now the recovery begins and it is a slow proccess. He should be eating by the end of next week (breast milk through a tube running into his mouth down the new esophagus into the stomach) and if there are no leaks (which if there are that will add an immediate 7 days to repair and wait to confirm it is fixed) we should be home in one to two weeks.

Thankfully Melanie was released from Brookwood by 8:00 a.m. the morning after delivery and was able to be with Benjamin all day Friday. Needless to say we are tired but relieved to be out of the woods for now.

The prayer right now is that there are no leaks in the new esophagus, that Benjamin will rest well under medication and heal completely from the surgery with no infection, ect. We also pray that other organs (kidneys, bladder...everything down stream) have no anomolies to make further correction necessary. This is a congenital anomoly that can have other "sister" anomolies but so far his heart, ect...has looked normal (Praise God).


Thank EVERYONE for their prayers and please...keep praying for this sweet little boy. We will continue to update and add pictures as we can.

Love, Melanie, Jerry (and big brother Barrett)