Aidan's Good News

We got some great news about Aidan this past week. He had an MRI on his cheek and they told us that his cyst is now small enough that they most likely won't have to do anything more to it, and it probably won't grow back!! We were so excited! Aidan has been through SO much in his short 2.5 years. To truely appreciate what this news means for us you have to know the entire story of Aidan. I figured I would tell his story, and post some pictures of his challenges and achievements from the past two years. Sorry if you have heard this story before, but I don't really have it written down anywhere else, so I figured it would be a good time to do it!

The whole story began in January of 2005. I found out that I was pregnant with Aidan on January 10, 2005. It was a huge surprise for us. Kael was only 10 months old and I was on birth control. As shocked as I was, we were excited (and terrified). Everything went well with the pregnancy and nothing was out of the ordinary. I found out that Aidan was a boy and that I was due on September 11, 2005. I wasn't too excited about the date, and so we scheduled for me to be started on September 3. It would be perfect. It was going to be the Friday of Labor Day weekend. Joseph wouldn't have to miss as much school and work and it would be great. I went to my appointment on July 21st and everything looked good. I felt fine and even went to a birthday party for my Grandma that night. Late Thursday night while I was waiting for Joseph to get home from his job (working swing) I started to feel weak and light headed, but I just figured I was tired and we went to bed. On Friday morning I woke up around 6:50 and went to the bathroom. I layed back down for a few minutes since I knew that Joseph's alarm would be going off any minute. All of the sudden my water broke. I knew that was what had happened because it also broke with Kael. When my water breaks it really breaks! It was like someone poured a bucket of water on me and our bed. I knew this was bad. I woke Joseph up and had him call the doctor. Dr. Housel sent us strait to McKay Dee since he knew that Brigham City would life flight the baby there anyway. I wasn't having any contractions and looking back I know that I Heavenly Father was protecting me from the reality of the whole situation. I was really calm and happy.

When I got to the hospital they took me and did an in depth ultrasound on Aidan. It showed that he was head down, but only had about 1/3 of the amount of fluid that should be in there with him. The doctors made the decision to try and keep him inside for as long as they could so that his lungs could mature more. I sat in the hospital all day and nothing happened. That night I started to have contractions. I was given a shot to make them stop and then I was given two sets of steroid shots to help speed up Aidan's lung development. (For anyone who is thinking about ever using steroids...DON'T!! They hurt more than any shot or epidural I have ever had) We sat like this in the hospital until Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday I started feeling awful. I was really uncomfortable and I kept thinking that I was in labor. The nurses kept telling me that I wasn't and that I was just uncomfortable because I had been in the bed for so long. The machines weren't picking up my contractions, but I knew that I was going to have this baby. Finally around 1:30 my cousin Alicia came to visit. We were sitting there talking and she could tell that I was extremely uncomfortable. She went to the nurse and told her that she needed to get me some pain medicine or something. The nurse was annoyed and called Dr. Housel. He told her to take me to Labor and Delivery and see if the machines down there could pick up my contractions. They took me to Labor and Delivery around 2:15. The nurse there was way nicer. She hooked the machine up to my belly and watched it for a while. She came back in and told me that this machine wasn't picking up any contractions, but that she could tell that I was in pain. She called Dr. Housel and he finally decided that they needed to check and see how far I was dilated. They hadn't done this at all since I had been in the hospital because they didn't want to induce labor. She came back in and when she checked me I was dilated to a 9.5. Yah...I knew I was in labor! After that things were crazy. They rushed Joseph to a room to put on scrubs, and a hair net and they rushed me into a special delivery room that is hooked to a special room for the baby. I was terrified. They gave me an epidural around 2:50 just to make my body calm down so that Dr. Housel could get there. He made it from Brigham City in 18 minutes. I never even had to push. Dr. Housel basically walked in and caught him. Aidan was born at 3:07pm. I didn't get to hold him or anything. They rushed him into the other room and took Joseph with him. I got to see him about 4 hours later. Those four hours were spent trying to figure out what to name the poor little guy. Here are some of his first pictures from the NICU.

Here he is in the incubator. We could touch him, but we couldn't hold him at all. It is hard to tell how small he is, but the hand on his head is my sister Michelle's and the hand on his legs is my mom. They are both pretty small handed.

More pictures in the incubator. He had those eye coverings on his eyes so they wouldn't get hurt. He has a feeding tube in his nose and millions of little monitors on. In this picture he has an IV in his little hand.

This was the first time I got to hold him. His little veins kept failing so they had to put his IV in his head. All of those wires are hooked to a line that goes into his belly button and straight to his heart.

Aidan had to spend 12 days in the NICU. My parents and Michelle were so great and took Kael for almost an entire month while I was in the hospital and then while we traveled back and forth to see Aidan. We were SO excited when he could finally eat and was able to come home.

One of his first pictures at home. He was so tiny. It's hard to tell. He weighed 4 pounds 10 ounces when he was born and only about 4 pounds when we came home.
One of the first pictures with big brother Kael. Kael is only 18 months old in this picture and he looks huge compared to Aidan.
Aidan was born with a lymphatic malformation (cyst) in his left cheek. If you look at some of these pictures you can tell that his cheek is bigger than his other cheek.

Aidan was also born with a condition called torticollis. It is where the muscle (sternocleidomastoid) is short on one side of the neck. Because of this Aidan's head always leaned to the left side. He had physical therapy from the time that he was 6 months old until he was 18 months old to try and fix this. It finally started to get better when he was 18 months.



When Aidan was 16 months old he was struggling. He couldn't crawl and he was tired all of the time. We took him to an ENT at Primary Children's Hospital where they told us to listen to him breathe when he slept. I listened and he would take two normal breaths and then stop. Sometimes he would stop for up to 20 seconds and then take two more breaths. They told us that he had sleep apnea because his tonsils were so large that they touched all of the time. On December 18, 2006 we headed to Primary Children's where Dr. Grimmer took out Aidan's tonsils and adnoids.

Playing with his mask after his surgery.
Mommy and Aidan after spending a sleepless night at the hospital. The poor guy looks like someone beat him up!!
This is just a cute picture of Aidan at James and Shawn's wedding about 3 weeks after his tonsils came out. He started to crawl a week after they were out. The doctor said it was because when he had his tonsils they would block his airway when he held his head up to crawl. He was so much happier when he could get around!!

In the spring of 2007 we were still taking Aidan to see Dr. Grimmer about the cyst in his cheek. They had done an ultrasound of it and had done an MRI of his cheek and one of his whole head. He was such a trooper since he had to be sedated for all of these procedures. Dr. Grimmer decided that he was old enough and his head was big enough that they could more easily do the surgery to remove the cyst now. It was dangerous because his facial nerve ran right through the middle of the cyst. We were told before the surgery that if this nerve was damaged he would lose the feeling in that side of his face and it would be paralyzed. I was terrified! Joseph and my dad gave Aidan a blessing the night before the surgery and we knew that we were doing the right thing. Throughout Aidan's life he has had so many preisthood blessings to help him. I have had my testimony of the preisthood strengthened and I know for sure that our Heavenly Father knows us and is concerned about each of us.

One of the hardest things I have ever done was letting the doctor take him back to do surgery on his cheek. The surgery took 4.5 hours. Dr. Grimmer came out to talk to us afterward and said that Aidan did really well. He could only take out 75% of the cyst though because of the nerve running through it. They put a drain in his cheek to drain out all of the fluid. We stayed in the hospital for a week and then got sent home with the drain still in anyway. Here are some pictures of Aidan after his surgery...

Still drugged from the surgery.
Sleeping with Daddy. This was the only way he would sleep.
Trying to be happy, playing with his McQueen and Mater balloon.
Feeling much better and ready to break out of this joint!

This is what Aidan's cheek looked like when they took all of the bandages off and the drain out. He had a huge divet where the cyst used to be. I was excited until it suddenly started to fill in.
This picture was taken at his 2nd birthday, a month after his surgery. His cheek is bigger than ever.
This is the worst picture of all. This is what his cheek looked like by August. They decided to do sclerotherapy on the cyst. They inject an alcohol like fluid into his cheek and it burns the cyst and scar tissue. He had to have this done twice.
This is what his cheek looked like after the sclerotherapy. He was allergic to the tape that they put on him, that is why his poor face is flaming red. We waited and waited and his cheek slowly started to shrink. We are so happy with how it has turned out. Here are some pictures that are pretty recent of Aidan.

You can still tell a little bit, but we are so happy with the way that everything has turned out. We are so lucky to have Aidan in our family. He has been through so much and has always been so happy and loving. We love having him in our family and we are actually grateful for all of the trials we have gone through with him. They have brought us closer as a family and closer to our Heavenly Father. We love you Aidy Boy!