Second Expander Fill

We survived Sophie's second expander fill (which was the first one we have done at home) on Saturday.  Thank goodness for Emla cream, which is used to numb the skin over the ports on the expanders.  We injected 60 cc's into each expander with 3 suckers and no tears!  Yea!

I did find out one thing the hard way, Emla cream wears off after two hours for Sophie.  We were told by Sophie's doctors and nurses to apply the Emla an hour before the fill.  Well, I saw on the Nevus Outreach Yahoo group where others said to wait two hours.  My thought was, if one hour works then two should be better.  Logical, right?  Wrong! 

After finishing the fill of the first expander, I moved around to the other side to begin the second expander fill.  I started to insert the needle and she MOVED!  No cries.  Just movement.  I froze.  I waited a minute.  Still no tears, so I thought, "Maybe it was just the pressure she was moving away from".  I tried again.  Same thing, and a whine too.  Oh, I could have died right there on the spot.  I was so nervous already that I wouldn't do it right or that I would hurt her, and I tried to stay calm throughout the whole process because I knew she would pick up on the fact that I was upset.  I also knew that if this was a bad experience that it would set the tone for the other 10-11 fills that we have ahead of us.  No pressure, right?

After the second time she felt the needle stick, I told Bo that we would just stop, apply more Emla cream, wait an hour and try again.  We did.  The Emla worked, and we had a successful second try.  Whew!  I was so relieved!  I am so glad to have that behind us now!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us.  Keep it up because we have 10-11 more fills to go!

Sophie with 220 cc's in each expander