WOW....what amazing first year!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Okay... time to update....

Well, Julia' surgery has come and gone and all is good. She was scheduled to have surgery on Feb 18th and after waiting all day they canceled her surgery and sent us home. They had an emergency in the OR and I completely understand.... didn't like it, didn't make it any better... but I understand. SO... we went back on Friday, the 20th for surgery. They took her back around 230pm and ENT put tubes in her ears and Dr. van Aalst took the calcification off of her face... 2 down 1 to go... the soft palate cleft. Well, Dr. van Aalst came out and said there was no cleft in the soft palate! WHAT? I saw it 4 months ago.... are you sure? Well, it is gone... by the grace of God.... is the only explanation, but it is gone. Anyway, she now has what is called a submucous cleft palate. It is easier to research it on google than for me to try to explain it. Basically, there is no open hole in her mouth.. there is a covering over the hole now. Now the obstacle will be her speech. We will work with speech therapy and keep a close eye on her speech development and go from there. Dr. van Aalst said there is a chance she may need a surgery when she is around 4 or 5 to help with her speech, but that is yet to be determined. Isn't this great...no "no-no's"...she can keep her bottle until she turns 1.... she can eat real food.... all the things that would have been taken away from her for at least 6 weeks!!! Plus she is a mad woman on all four.....CRAWLS all over the place!! Take care everyone:)

How fast time goes by......

Well, things have been crazy the past few months. We have had our first Christmas with Julia and the boys went to Montana for a week while Julia and I had girl time. Julia's surgery is fast approaching us and we are all getting a little anxious. She is battling yet another ear infection along with RSV this past week. She is getting better every day and all we hope and pray for is she is healthy for her surgery.
She has started to crawl and wants to stand all the time. She is very curious of everything going on around her and she loves her big brothers more than I can say. I will keep everyone up to date once her surgery is over.

Craniofacial team appointment

Well..where to begin? Julia had her first craniofacial team meeting today and Lee and I think it went pretty well. Dr. van Aalst, her plastic surgeon, is very pleased with how her lip is healing and so are we. He spoke with us about her upcoming palate surgery and what to expect. She will be in the hospital for atleast one night and will keep those wonderful "no-no's" on for 2 weeks!!! The recovery for the surgery is going to be a challenge for a 10 month old. No bottles and she can't have anything thicker than stage 2 baby food for a month. Oh well..... we will deal with it! Next we spoke with a social worker and she was wonderful. She gave us some wonderful information to help us get Julia off of the bottle before her palate surgery, which she must be off or the surgery will not happen. Then we saw speech and they said they would re-evaluate her after her surgery to see what type of therapy she will need. We also saw an oral maxillofacial surgeon and we will not need a bone graph until she is around 6 years of age. She saw a pediatric dentist and they just looked in her mouth.....they didn't say much. We also met with ENT and went over her recent ear infections and we all agreed that she needs tubes. They will put those in when she has her palate surgery in Feb. The doctor informed us that she may need 2 or 3 sets of tubes, we will just have to wait and see. We are all a little tired, but I think she did GREAT! We will keep you updated on her progress. Happy Holidays!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Just a few pictures of Julia and her brothers!

We have had a lot of first over the last month!  Julia is a mover!!! If she wants to get somewhere she just rolls until she gets there.  She has started to enjoy baby food... as you can see probably too much.  She weighed 20 pounds about 2 weeks ago... she is healthy.  She had her picture taken with her first pumpkin, had to wear a hat because it was cold, and has gone to her first UNC Tarheel game!!  We kinda like UNC.... that is where she has her surgeries.  Until next time....

Is she cute or what?

Julia had her one month follow up appointment with her surgeon today and I think it went pretty good.  We are to start massaging the lip 5 times a day to help with the scar.  And as you can imagine, she is not to fond of it.  Dr. van Aalst looked in her mouth again today and I could actually see the cleft in her palate.  The palate is open with a thin layer that is covering the opening in her palate.  So, we are a go for Feb 18 for her palate surgery.  It was an up down day with emotions.  I was excited to hear that her lip looks exactly what the doctor expected, but then went down hill talking about another surgery in Feb and possibly another one when she is 4 ( a lip revision) and then her bone graft when she is 6 or so.  4 surgeries before she is 7 years old! That is just a little hard to swallow today.  But then you look at her and just smile:)  She is gift to us from God and I thank Him everyday for all of my blessings... Lee, Connor, Zachary, and Julia. Until next time...