Post Op Post

Well I just got home from seeing “The Princess and the Frog” with Dylan and he’s feeling special. Dawn was released from the hospital (that’s right two days after a c-section) and is sitting with our baby girl along with Grandma Linda. As for the surgery... it went great.  It started at 7:50 and ended around 10:00am.  Dr. Kim was able to close her belly up and left the umbilical cord in so she should have a belly button, just a little higher than most. She will have a horizontal scar across her belly but that should heal up fairly well. We were able to see her around 11:00 and she looked pretty good for someone who just went through major surgery. She was breathing on her own with no vent needed.

No news about the heart just yet.  They will do an echocardiogram in a couple of days to see if it has healed on its own. She will hopefully start eating in a couple of days and be home with us not long after that. It just goes to show you what a little faith and a lot of prayers can do.
Thanks to all of our friends and family for sending thoughts and prayers our way.
Happy New Year Everyone!

Love the Riegerts

Success!

Ripley just got out of surgery and everything went great. Got to run Dawn will update soon.

Our Baby girl all cleaned up and ready for surgery in the morning.

Grandma Linda's 1st chance to get hands on the baby.

Baby Ripley's 1st Bath!

She already has Daddy wrapped around her finger.

Yeah… Dawn finally was able to see Ripley today. I spoke to the Cardiologist and he was confident that the hole in Ripley’s heart would mend on it’s own. We were also told that she would have surgery at 7:30 tomorrow morning to close up her abdomen. The surgeon said it was 50/50 as to whether she would need a ventilator or not afterwards. Cross you fingers…..

quick update

Not much to report so far today.  Baby Ripley is doing great... so I hear.  I'm waiting for the hospital to get me a pass so I can go over and see her.  Kind of frustrating.  Scott just went over to see her and she's been sleeping alot.  The nurses said she did great all night and was no trouble.  Let's keep it up!  They are still planning on surgery tomorrow and we are very happy about that.  That's all we know for now.

Thank you all for your kind words and prayers.  It means so much to us.  We truly appreciate it!!!

Dawn & Scott

Good news!

Baby Ripley is doing great!  The surgeon was able to push the omphalocele inside her abdomen and clamped it off for right now. The omplalocele sac contained some liver and spleen and was smaller than expected.  He plans to do the surgery on Thursday to close up her belly and said she might even get a belly button.  She is still breathing on her own and sleeping like a baby!

Our Baby Girl....

Welcome Ripley Anne Riegert!

Ripley arrived at 10:04am weighing 6 pounds 3 ounces & 19 inches long. She's doing great! So far she's breathing on her own with no ventilator... which is fantastic. We just heard from the surgeon at the Children's hospital (Dr. Kim) and he said she looks better than expected. He hopes that she can have surgery in a couple days to fully repair the omphalocele. We are so excited about that. There is one setback however. She does have a small hole in her heart (VSD) and they will do more tests to make sure that there are no other problems. The hole is common and often repairs itself. If it does not, they will do a procedure to fix it. But if that's the only problem... besides the omphalocele... things are looking very good. I am doing fine. Just very tired and not expecting to get much sleep in the hospital. I was not able to hold the baby at all, but they did let me see and touch her before they took her to the Scottish Rite across the street. Scott did hold her briefly. We have some pictures that we will post.

Dylan and Grandma just left and they got to see her for a little while. Dylan seems excited and is doing very well with the whole thing.

That's about all we know for now. We will update this later once we know more. Scott is going to the Children's now to be with Ripley. By the way...she's cute as a button!

The big day is almost here!

Baby Riegert is expected to arrive tomorrow around 9:45am. We're lucky she didn't come today! We went in this morning for another ultrasound and an amniocentesis to check her lung maturity. After that they gave me a non-stress test to make sure baby was doing fine. I was hooked up to a monitor where they could listen to the heartbeat. After about 20 minutes the nurse heard a drop in heartbeat and said we might be having a baby today. But... after another 1.5 hours of monitoring and a call to the doctor's office, they decided to let me go home. Whew! Everything looked fine and we are still awaiting the results of the amnio. We don't expect there to be any problems and things should go on schedule. Last week during my ultrasound they could see her diaphragm moving... which means she's practicing breathing. They could also see that she has hair! It's all pretty amazing. We are plenty excited and nervous at the same time. Dylan is excited to be a big brother and Scott and I are definitely looking forward to meeting our little girl!

Hello family & friends

We have created this blog as a site for news and information about our baby girl who is due 12/29/09. For those of you who don't know, she was diagnosed with a birth defect called an Omphalocele when I was 13 weeks pregnant. That basically means some of her organs (liver & some intestines) are growing on the outside of her body in a membrane and will hopefully be fixed after birth. We've had a rough road so far to get to this point. If you look up Omphalocele the results aren't pretty. There are many other things that could also go wrong, but so far we've ruled most things out. The baby has already gone through genetic testing and numerous ultrasounds to look at the heart, other organs and anything else they can tell from in the womb. So far things look good and we decided to continue with the pregnancy... even though some people discouraged us from that. We have faith that our little girl will be alright and we will need many good thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks. It's very possible the omphalocele can be repaired and she will be completely normal once she heals. We don't know exactly what will happen until she's born. The doctors will decide if she will be able to have surgery right away or if they have to wait until she is a little bigger. Either way, we know we have a long road ahead. We will try to update this page as often as we can.

Dawn & Scott